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CHEEFS-D’diU VRE 


OF THE 


INDUSTRIAL ARTS. 


BY 


PHIGITPPE BURTY. 


POTTERY AND PORCELAIN, GLASS, ENAMEL, METAL, 
GOLDSMITHS’ WORK, JEWELLERY, 
AND TAPESTRY. 


Sees Ces ee A) 


EDITED BY 


W. CHAFFERS, F.S.A. 


NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND CO, GRAND STREET. 
1869. 


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PREFACE. 


In editing this interesting and comprehensive work on 
the Industrial and Ornamental Arts, as well as in revising 
the translation and comparing it with the original text, I 
have endeavoured to confine myself as much as possible 
to a correct interpretation of the terms employed in the 
several Arts, and to describe the modus operandi of each 
manufacture in such a manner as to be intelligible to the 


English reader. 


I have also purposely avoided any interference with 
the ideas or sentiments of the author, or his opinions on 
the various subjects he passes under review; but when 
any matter has called for especial notice, a foot note 


has been added. 


W. CHAFFERS. 


19 Fitzroy Square, London. 
February 20, 1869. 


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CONTENTS. 


—_—— eo 
PAGE 
CERAMIC ART ., 2 : P : : i : é : eer 
TERRA COTTA . : f , ; . . ; . ‘ Paes 
ENAMELLED FAIENCE . : : : : : : : at 
PORCELAIN Pets : , ; , : ; ; : wait 
GLASS: 
TABLE GLASS . 4 : : ; : J : j ; APA ar! 
WINDOW GLASS ; ; ; ; : : : : : 2 201 
ENAMELS . ? ; 4 : ‘ ; ; : : : Pat yi | 
METALS: 
BRONZE AND [RON ‘ : ! : ‘ ; : : 2 
JEWELLERY AND PLATE ; : f : ; ; : . 301 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS . ; . 367 


yey 
< 
~ x 


LIST OF THE FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


BERNARD PALISsy . . (Frontispiece) 
A GIRL AT HER TOILET . ; : : : : : ee lee 
THE TorLet oF VENUS . : 3 aries OT 
PAvinea TILES OF THE SAINTE 3 Bee : ; : : : . od 
BIBERON OF OIRON FAYENCE . : ‘ eres : : Sar ee 
OvaL Pauissy DisH, wWItH REPTILES : : ; : ar 
BENITIER OF NEVERS FAYENCE ; : ; ; - LO2 
MotstiERS WARE SuGaR CasTER : : eG 
RENNES FAYENCE FOUNTAIN AND BASIN . : : : iit os bi 
PrerstAN WARE EWER MOUNTED IN METAL y ; . : Pia tak ° 
PERSIAN WARE VESSELS . é : : ; j met 
~GoURD FOR THE DECORATION OF A SIDEBOARD—OF Waerk STONE 
ANA, eee ede : : : : ; ’ any ie 
Vase, Ewrr, AND res ; ; : ; : ; ; . 144 
Tae SKATING PARTY : ; meta he 
VAsE OF OLD DreEspEN PORCELAIN . : ‘ . 154 
A VESTAL , : : : : ; : : . fon Loe 
THE Moprern PsycHE ; . f ; : ; ; Ce Ls 
GERMAN GLASS DRINKING VESSELS. ‘ F ve 188 
WINbLOW IN THE CATHEDRAL OF St. DENIS : . 204 
LAZARUS AT THE RicH MAn’s GATE ‘ ; eos 
ANCIENT CHINESE CLOISONNI: ENAMEL VASE ; : ; ad. 
RoMANO-GAULISH VASE, IN BRONZE, ENAMELLED ; pad 
Limoges ENAMEL Ewmr. SIxTEENTH CENTURY . ; 228 
Henry II. anp Drana or PoIcTrEeRs ; ; ; . . 280 
Henry II. ; ; : : , : ; : ; 2 doe 
Laspour TRIUMPHANT ; ; : : : eat 
ITALIAN SworD OF THE SIXTEENTH Cis ‘ : . 260 
CmsArn HARANGUING HIS Troops ; E ; , ; . 266 


EGYPTIAN BRONZE SEATED FIGURE OF OsTIRIS 
EayprTriAN BroxzkE oF THE BuLut APIS ; ; ; ; ; 


Vili ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Ewer, CANDLESTICK, PERFUME-BURNER, AND TORTOISE, OF JAPANESE 


BRONZE ? 3 : 2 
COMMODE MADE BY PHILIPPE CAFFIERI 
WROUGHT-IRON Door KNOCKER . 
Iron Gates or THE NEw Parc Moncravx 
CANDELABRUM OF CAST-IRON 
GREEK PENDANT IN Form or A MASK 
GREEK GOLD EARRING 
GREEK GOLD FIBULA ‘ 

GREEK GOLD CIRCULAR FIBULA 

RELIQUARY Cross OF GILT COPPER 

RELIQUARY FROM THE ANCIENT TREASURY OF BASLE 
RELIQUARY OF COPPER GILT 

VIRGIN AND CHILD 

DAMASCENED CASKET 


SALT-CELLAR OF GOLD ENAMELLED, REPRESENTING EAKTH AND OCEAN 


THE NymMpPH oF FONTAINEBLEAU 

Prrsgvus, BY B. CELLINI . : 

VasE AND Cup oF ORIENTAL JASPER, MOUNTED IN GOLD 
EWER OF ENAMELLED GOLD 

CuurcH LAMP IN SILVER : : : ‘ x 
Breer Pot OF EMBOSSED SILVER 

A Fancon CHASE J : 

THe History oF DAvID AND BATHSHEBA : 
PERSIAN CARPET OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, IN SILK 
THE HARE AND THE PARTRIDGE 

PATTERNS FOR HAND NEEDLEWORK . 


° 


° 


PAGE 


270 
276 
287 


a 


_—— 


| 
| 


A M I C AR T 


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7 4 


” 


CERAMIC ART. 


Or all those kinds of industry which decorative art has ennobled, the 
fictile or ceramic is that which man has most closely associated with 
his own existence. The indications with which it furnishes the 
historian and the critic are, therefore, the most comprehensive, and at 
the same time the most particular. The Polish numismatist, Lelewel, 
wrote, when in exile, to a friend who had submitted to him a plan of 
historic studies in connection with earthen vases: “ The light thrown 
by art upon pottery of the commonest kind may be as serviceable as 
language itself in promoting our knowledge of the origin of races, 
their military expeditions and commercial relations.” This statement 
is perfectly accurate. It is the more interesting from the fact that 
materials abound for the study thus recommended, and that the earth 
is a museum of which the cases have scarcely been opened as yet,— 
much less inspected. What surprises await us! We have had under our 
eyes, we have held in our hand, we have examined with that curiosity 
which attaches to whatever has existed in the early days of humanity, 
a fragment of pottery, only very little posterior in date to the last 
deluge. It is a little pot of greyish earth, covered with a black 
coating ; the vertical sides of it must have been shaped by the hand, 
and not by the wheel, for they bear striated traces of the pressure of 
a human finger. This pot has been baked by fire, and not simply by 
the heat of the sun, for it was found (not indeed alone) in a peat bog 
in the department of the Aisne, at Saint-Simon ; and had it not been 


B 2 


4 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


subjected, no matter how rapidly, to the passage of fire which renders 
clay indissoluble, it must have been dissolved by the moisture of the soil, 
like a soft paste. It was found amidst the remains of animals, one of 
which, the Castor fiber, is extinct; the other bones belonged to the 
stag, the otter, the pig, the roebuck, the pike, and the curlew. From 
the co-existence of these bones with the pottery found amongst them, 
we may assume the establishment of a stationary population of hunters 
and fishers. 

The jawbone of an antediluvian man has already been discovered ; 
possibly antediluvian vases may yet be discovered. ‘The invention of 
Ceramic manufacture‘is so evidently coeval with the dawn of civiliza- 
tion, that the annals of mankind have passed it unnoticed. Cain 
built a city, and called it after his eldest son Enoch. Now, as the 
remains of those cities that are strewn over the soil of Syria and Me- 
sopotamia are, for the most part, vast masses of bricks dried in the sun, 
it is more than probable that Enoch was built of-similar materials. 

Here, then, strictly speaking, from the Biblical point of view, we are 
presented with specimens of antediluvian Ceramic industry. ‘The 
necessity of keeping water pure and fresh must have been more 
sensibly felt than any other by pastoral tribes. The man who lived 
by the banks of rivers had only to kneel at the brink, and scoop up 
the water with his hand. The huntsman found about the forests - 
springs and brooks, and flowers filled with morning dew, and trees 
from which aromatic juices might be extracted by wounding the bark. 
But to the nomad population earthen vases were absolutely necessary, 
either for drawing water from the well, or storing it in the tent, or 
for preserving from the sun’s devouring heat the provisions of the — 
caravan. 

The impress of a footprint in the soil, hardened by the sun, filled 
with water by the storm, and then converted to a cup in which small 
birds would dip their beaks,—might not this have suggested the idea 
of a vase, and given birth to the first potter ? 

The general history of Ceramic art is entirely new; but the minds 
of its students have been so well prepared for the reception and treat- 
‘ment of its materials, that in less than ten years it has made the most 
rapid progress; and at peesat it is by the abundance of documents 
that we are embarrassed. 

In France, especially, the movement is most + Toca The re- 


CERAMIC ART. 5 


action towards the end of the eighteenth century, pushed to its extreme 
by the classic school of David, had brought into fashion the so-called 
Etruscan vases; they were confiscated by the savants. The classic 
terra-cotta made us forget the native pottery. ‘The description of a 
sacred scene, the rendering of an inscription, the assignment of a name, 
excluded all other claims on attention. People collected antique vases, 
not for the pleasure of the eyes, or the decoration of the chamber, but 
for the satisfaction of erudition. Under the first empire, too, white 
porcelain had all the housewives and housekeepers for its champions. 

In these later years artists who had ended their apprenticeship, and 
who visited for their pleasure Normandy or the forest of Fontainebleau, 
used to buy from their peasant hosts in the villages and country towns, 
Rouen dishes of radiant decoration, and Nevers plates with grotesque 
or buffo designs. This vulgar taste, first laughed at, was eventually 
adopted so widely that a sixpenny assiette a cog is now worth sixty 
francs! In the meanwhile, amateurs and traders of taste had brought 
from Italy dishes to which the potters of Majorca and Urbino had 
given the grand style of Oriental art, or of the fine periods of Italian 
art. People began to admire the changing hues of the metallic 
lustres, the free and bold attitude of the figures, and became at last so 
enthusiastic as to pillage even the apothecaries’ shops. Closer relations 
with China, Japan, and Persia brought into the market new food 
for the ever-increasing curiosity of the public. The success of those 
printed vessels with expressive outline, those vases with long-clawed 
dragons twisting round their sides, those deep dishes with pinks and 
carnations blowing in the hollow of them, began to disturb the souls 
of the disciples of the old classic school, and it is from this return of 
taste to the Oriental porcelain that we may date all serious discussion 
concerning the principles of decorative art. At last, the eighteenth 
century haying reconquered the ground it had lost, Dresden figures 
and Sévres services were appreciated for their refined gallantry and 
elegance. 

Thus arose the wish to learn the history of all that which had come 
to grace with so much harmony and colour the shelves of studios and 
the cabinets of salons. On all sides archives began to be searched, 
travellers questioned, and potters encouraged to study Ceramic art ; 
and now, indeed, we are beginning to be altogether overwhelmed by 
the deluge of monographs inspired by the legitimate claims of ancient 


6 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


provisional centres, classification according to country, epoch, or the 
special character of collections, public and private, and the number 
of imitations attempted in every direction and often carried to 
perfection. | | 

But let not the reader suppose that we are about to leave him in 
the labyrinth without a clue. We have read, classified, and consulted 
on his behalf all that has been written, classified, or exposed of late 
years as regards Ceramic art; and it will be our endeavour, not indeed 
to complete his education in respect thereof, but to bring under his 
notice certain points which can be easily studied, and which will 
furnish him with a key to all the rest. For, though it is well that 
the museums should collect specimens of all kinds of pottery, in the 
twofold interest of art and manufacture, and an excellent thing that 
amateurs should vie with each other for the perfect products of Persia 
or Italy, Rouen or Nevers, Moustiers or Delft, yet this faience-mania 
must not be allowed to obliterate every subject of examination but that 
of fracture and trade marks. 

We shall devote three chapters to the mention of the most important 
and best-known works of Ceramic art. One will be devoted to terra 
cotta, and will specially treat of the use that has been made of it by 
sculptors ; the second will treat of enamelled faience, and will narrate 
the personal history of the greatest artizan that France has to boast 
of—Bernard Palissy ; finally, we shall rapidly review the chefs dceuvre 
of Oriental and European pottery. 

The favour of the public for Oriental Ceramics, and those of the 
Renaissance and Eighteenth Century is not a mere infatuation. It is 
a very legitimate enthusiasm for a brilliant and sound material, the 
employment of which for external decoration must justly increase its 
importance, and of which the daily use imposes on societies as polished 
as ours, obligations of research as regards ornamentation and form, 
which are, in some sort, of general utility. We may judge of the taste 
of a people for the arts exclusively from the dishes and vases which it 
employs for daily use. We shall therefore not omit to notice the 
attempts, so worthy of interest, which are now being made in France 
and England to restore to decorative Ceramic art its ancient splendour. 
A brief mention of centres so important in past times as Rouen, Nevers, 
Marseilles, Moustiers, Strasbourg, will suffice to show how thoroughly 
national is this branch of industry. 


TERRA COTTA. 


hotel of Sane Sardini—The saat? 


The tanks pane Be Be of the Oe 
Cyrenaica—F lorentine cantatrice—The med 


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WaeErEveR men have discovered plastic clay, that is to say a rich 
unctuous earth, easily diluted or tempered, and which, when once dried, 
either by evaporation in the shade, or the rays of the sun, or the heat 
of an oven, is durably firm to the touch, they have invariably made use 
of it to model vases, or idols, or materials for roofing or building. 
Invariably also they have traced upon it more or less the same deco- 
rative forms—semicircles, straight lines, or zig-zags. 

The Greeks, who mingled fable and history with a singular charm, 
thus account for the invention of Ceramic art applied to the representa- 
tion of the human figure—that is to say of bas-relief, and bust, and 
statue—“ It is said that Debutades, a potter at Sicyon, was the first 
who attempted to shape images out of the earth he made his pots of ; 
and this by means of a daughter of his, who, being in love with a 
young man, drew with a coal, by candle-shade, on the wall, the profile 
of her lover’s face in order that she might always be able to contem- 
plate his features when he was absent. Seeing this, the father filled 
up the outline of the said features by plastering the wall with clay in 
conformity with the profile traced upon it; and having perceived that 
by this means he had produced a certain form, he put it to bake with 
his pots.” It is not, however, to the Greeks that we must attribute 
the first attempts at modelling and moulding; for the statuettes of 
divinities in earth dried or baked, painted or enamelled, which are 
found all over the globe, amongst the most savage tribes as well 
as in the oldest Egyptian sarcophagi, establish the general existence 


Io MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


of an art which no people can claim the invention of. An artist in 
earthen works, far older than Debutades, is mentioned in the Mahab- 
harata, a Sanscrit poem, so richly descriptive, so florid, so solemn, 
that the perusal of it seems to carry us away into the forests it describes, 
filled with lofty trees, covered with flowers, traversed by the flight of 
peacocks, inhabited by anchorites, and bathed by torrent streams. 
Savitri—this is the name of the herome from whom this chaste and 
touching episode derives its title—Savitri falls in love with the son of 
a deposed king. “He still possesses excellent horses, and he loves 
them so well that he fashions them out of clay; he also paints horses 


= 


fll 


ANCIENT GALLIC POTTERY. 
(Found in the Vendée.) 


of many colours.” This artist, who doubtless lived long before the 
heroes of the Iliad, was called Satiavan. 

But under this fable of Debutades, the Greeks implied a critical 
statement which is strikingly true, viz., that the real inventor of an 
art is he who first practises it artistically. ‘The story of Debutades, 
therefore, is true. He used, as artist, what those before him had used 
only as children or barbarians. His alto-relievo, for this is probably 
what is implied by the text, so greatly impressed his contemporaries 
that it was placed with the bronze statues of Corinth, and there re- 
mained till that city was destroyed by the Consul Mummius. 

Another Greek potter—this one was a practician—invented the art — 
of moulding ; that is to say of obtaining any number of copies from an 
original by means of soft earth inserted into a properly-hollowed 
receptacle. It is to this art, which comes strictly within our pro- 
gramme of art applied to industry, that we owe our knowledge of all — 


TERRA COTTA. II 


the charm and force, the fulness and refinement, which antiquity 
lavished upon its statues and the exterior decoration of its monuments. _ 
The museum of Napoleon III., in the Louvre, will furnish our readers 
with a vast field for exploration quite as well as a journey through 
Greece or Italy. 

The most important object is a tomb, said to be Lydian, which was 
found intact in Etruria; two personages, a husband and wife, are 
extended upon it in a recumbent position, leaning on their elbows; 
their crooked, turned-up chins, prominent cheek-bones, Chinese eyes, 
head-gear, and pointed slippers, denote an Oriental origin which the 
learned have not yet been able to define precisely. On other sarcophagi 
of a much later date we also find couples or isolated figures reposing, 
not like our seigneurs of the middle age, reposing in sleep with clasped 

hands and stretched out legs, but leaning on the elbow, as though 
_ death were an invitation to a funeral repast or philosophic conversation. 
The greater part of these are of trivial workmanship; the neck is 
detached, showing that the potters had ready-made bodies on hand, 
and that the relatives of the deceased must have hastened to the work- 
shop, in the last moment, to order a head resembling more or less that 
of the departed. 

Much more interesting than these funereal figures are the antifixes 
and bas-reliefs which were displayed in friezes along the facades of the 
Roman houses. It will be observed that the same subject was fre- 
quently repeated. ‘The Curetes, clashing their bucklers to drown the 
_ cries of the infant Bacchus; naked and muscular vintagers treading, 
in time to some song, the grapes in the wine-press ; two young satyrs 
standing on tiptoe to reach the vase of a fountain too high for their lips ; 
or the combat of Apollo and Hercules disputing for the prophetic tripos 
of Delphi; Hercules discovering the infant Telephus, suckled by a goat 
in a grotto overshadowed by a tree; or, further on, bearing a bull on 
his shoulder and followed by Autumnus, or taming the bull of Marathon; 
the marriage of Thetis and Peleus, a scene of touching chastity and 
grandeur; or again, Theseus discovering his father’s armour under 
a stone. 

Sometimes the treatment of the subject rises into the highest emo- 
tional expression, and the face and figure of Helen, driving with her 
own hand the car in which she returns with Menelaus to her palace, 
expresses a profound discouragement. A Penthesilea, who falls dying 


12 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


into the arms of an Achilles filled with compassion, is also one of the 
most affecting of these subjects. We have already called attention to 
the frequent repetition of the same subject. It is in such repetition 
that the genius of the artists who modelled these bas-reliefs for so 
modest an employment is most strikingly evinced. In every case the 
scene is slightly modified, the muscular detail changed, the gesture 


eeucounT, ie L. CHAPON. 
BACCHANAL FRIEZE. 
(Terra Cotta, Campana Collection.) 


sharpened or softened, the expression aimed at, more tender, or more 
haughty. They are so many editions of the same text, revised and 
corrected by ingenious editors. | 

We shall not dwell upon those bas-reliefs which represent foliage 
or fanciful designs. -In designs of this kind, as also in automatic — 
knowledge, and the arrangement of drapery, the Greeks are superior. 
The Renaissance has in vain endeavoured to surprise the secret of that 
sovereign grace, that sweetness, combined with gravity of expression, — 
and has too often degenerated into mannerism. 


TERRA COTTA. 13 


For frankness and originality, the ornamentation of our Gothic 
cathedrals is all which the decorative art of the Western world can 
venture to place beside those bas-reliefs, which were coloured, or of — 
which at least the figures were relieved by a blue or red ground. 
Cicero calls them types “typi” when he writes to his friend Atticus 
to send him some from Athens for the adornment of his atrium. The 


ORNAMENT OF A ROMAN HOUSE. 


(Terra Cotta relief. Campana Collection.) 


finest specimens have been found at Ardea, ancient capital of the 
Rutuli, which was situated not far from Rome and Tusculum. A 
mould has also been found there. 

But what surpasses even these bas-reliefs, in freshness, homeliness, 
and charming simplicity, is the little antique statuettes, and especially 
those called Cyrenaic. The greater part of them still bear traces of 
colour. Doubt has long been felt as to the purpose to which these 
statuettes were applied; for they are found in great numbers, though, 
unfortunately, not the finest of them. It is now thought, that in all 
cases where they were not native offerings, such as those little waxen 
figures which modern piety still places in chapels of the Virgin, they 


14 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


were simply used as objects of art, for household ornaments, to charm 
the wandering eye. The young woman at her toilette, which belonged 
to the Pourtales éollection, is quite as precious as an antique in bronze 
or marble. Mr. Mercuri has spent a day in endeavouring, with his 
finest graver, to render the dove-like softness, the simplicity in pose 
and gesture, of this young lady bent over the mirror. Of the same 
kind is the head of a young Greek—some shepherd of Theocritus. 
That fine, panting mouth, is it not made to 
blow through the reeds of the pastoral pipe ; 
and that little straw hat, scarcely covering 
the brow, does it not seem there only to be 
thrown off when the wearer flings himself at 
length on the fresh herbage in the beech 
trees’ shade ? 

One movement has taken hold of the artists 
who modelled these figures. It is that of the 
dancing girl, who springs forward, the bust 
slightly bent back, the leg advanced, and 
rustling the folds of her robe; or that of 
the woman leaving the bath, who wraps 
around her with a chilly gesture a long 
linen covering. These little statuettes were 
placed in tombs with the dead. We find some. 
very homely ones in the tombs of children— 
dolls with articulated arms ; polichinellos with 
parrot noses ; dogs, cats, cocks, fish, &e. It 
is death telling the story of life: these objects, that have lain in the 
little hands of children and young girls, are the same as those which, 
to this day, amuse our own childhood. The sketches and remains of 
temples, on the other hand, speak to us only of a political and social 
life, the features of which are unfamiliar to us. 

In the thermal resorts of the rich Roman invalids, and notably 
near Vichy, completely organized factories for the moulding of these 
statuettes have been discovered. But these are almost shapeless, and 
when we find a mould which still gives good impressions, we may be 
pretty sure that it has been taken from some Greek or Roman object, 
brought there in his baggage by some wealthy amateur. Pliny speaks 
of entire statues in terra cotta; none such have come down to us. 


GREEK SHEPHERD, 
(Cabinet of M. Thiers.) 


f 
ih 
Na 

if \ | IR 
Hoy 


I 
An 


A GIRL AT HER TOILETIE, 


(Greek terra cotta. Pourtales Collection, ) 


‘ Page 14. 


TERRA COTTA, 15 


But our collections possess casts of medallions, doubtless employed 
for female ornament, the impression of which is very successful, and _ 
often gilt, to imitate more completely the originals. 

The Italian Renaissance, in its turn, was enthusiastic about busts and 
statuettes in terra cotta. If we here mention the name of the Della 


FLORENTINE SINGER. 


Robbias, it is only to say that we shall hereafter have special occasion 
to notice more particularly those artists who, by applying the enamel of 
faience to terra cotta, invested it with a peculiarly decorative character. 


16 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


In the present place let it suffice to record the fact, that after a 
long period of undeserved indifference, the terra cotta busts of the 
Italian Fifteenth Century are now sought after with eagerness. At 
the Exposition rétrospective, organized in 1865, at the Palace of the 
Champs-Elysées, by the central Union des Beaux Arts appliqués a 
? Industrie, there was an admirable statuette of a young Florentine 
woman, which attracted every amateur. She is standing upright, in 
a robe of brocaded satin, which still bears traces of gilding ; she is 
singing aloud the music she holds written in her hands. It is the 

work of an artist of genius, whose name is unknown, and is probably 
the portrait of some princess of that court of the Dukes of Urbino, so 
distinguished for polished gallantry, literature and art.* 

But the sixteenth century did not merely abandon to sculptors the 
use of terra-cotta, which it also employed for the modelling of entire 
altar-screens. We shall return, apropes of the Della Robbias, to the 
subject,—the figures in alto-relievo which those artists inserted in 
medallions. One sees in the facade of some of the numerous interior 
courts of Hampton Court, large medallions of terra-cotta, from each of 
which the head of a Roman emperor looks out bold and vigorous from 
a heavy laurel wreath. It is said that they were sent by Leo X. 
to Cardinal Wolsey. In the hétel of Scipio Sardini, which is used at 
present for the general management of the Paris hospitals, there exists — 
an entire gallery, which has been spared by the indifference or caprice 
of modern architects; and under the arcades the heads of princesses 
and heroes may also be seen. Nothing can better harmonise with 
brickwork than those tints and tones of reddened earth, nor anything 
be more ludicrous than that kind of ornamentation which consists of 
moulded reliefs that invite the play of light and shade. Our modern 


* We have in this translation omitted the description of a bust in terra cotta of 
Jerome Benivieni, recently purchased as the work of a Florentine artist of the fifteenth 
century by the director of the Louvre, but which is now known to have been executed 
by M. Bastianini of Fiesole, in 1864, for M. Freppa of Florence, who paid him the 
sum of 350 francs; it was sold to a dealer in Paris for 700 franes, and afterwards, in a 
public sale by auction, adjudged to the Comte de Nieuwerkerke for the sum of 
13,600 francs, and is now in the Imperial Collection. The deception was noticed in 
the “Chronique des Arts,” of the 15th December, 1867, and in the present year 
M. Foresi has published a pamphlet entitled “ Tour de Babel, ou Objets d’Art faux 
pris pour vrai,” with the declarations of the sculptor Bastianini, and all the parties 
concerned. In this book many other pseudo antiques are traced to the same 
studio.—Ep, 


AA tS ed 


“)L o8tg (asnaljag 1a1eQ “J 0} SuyBuoleg “UOIPOID Aq ‘yarjar-svq #7900 11,1) 


~S % b SS 
yp 4 ————- SS PS 


ASN 
Zee 


TERRA COTTA. 17 


architects only venture to employ it upon structures of a common 
kind—in stable-yards, and the outer courts of country houses, for 
example. They are wrong not to be more courageous. 

The eighteenth century degraded the art of sculpture in terra cotta 
by a ridiculous employment of it. It animated its parks and gardens 
with groups of figures dressed or painted aw naturel. Things of this 
kind were in existence only a few years ago. Leside some piece of 
water you used to perceive a washerwoman, with her washing-beetle 
always in her hand, and never beating anything. A gardener is 
musing, with his elbow resting on the handle of his spade. An abbé 
galant pretends to be reading in his breviary, and is eternally ogling 
a shepherdess, whose sheep have only one ear and three legs. This 
notion of transforming a fine woodland or grassy park into a cabinet 
of earthenware figures, is one of the most shocking improprieties of 
that epoch. 

As we are unwilling to remain under so unpleasant an impression 
of an age that we greatly esteem, we have here reproduced one of 


those groups, modelled by Clodion with indefatigable vigour. Those 


little puffy Loves, those distempered bacchanals, those satyrs, walking 


with muscular backs bent under the menace of a cloven-footed infant, 
intoxicated by a couple of crushed grapes, these are the last chefs 


dewvre of terra cotta. They have often been compared, for their 
caprice of treatment and vivacity of effect, to the etchings of painters. 
Might not this toilette of Venus be just as well signed Fragonard 
sculpsit ? 

Our modern society, fastidious and with but little indulgence for the 
art that smeles, will it ever see those pleasant days restored? Let us 
hope so; and, indeed, applause has been accorded to an artist who has 
lately exposed some models of an easy and pleasing composition, and 
some busts of great vivacity. arth can be forced into a mould, and 
the sculptor then can and should, while it is yet moist and malleable, 
retouch and give it a new surface. Such proofs have, for this reason, 
more individuality and rarity than the proofs of a bronze, which is 
only retouched by a professional carver. Terra cotta has less rigidity 
than bronze, less uniformity than marble. Its tone is warmer, and 
its surface, imperceptibly grained, has none of those reflex lights, the 
great effect of which is dependent upon large surfaces. It 1s eminently 
a material for objects of familiar character. Pajou and Houdon have 

0 


18 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


shown us what sort of style can be attained in terra cotta, Let our 
artists use bronze for heroic, marble for ideal statues, but take the 
clay and the modelling-tool more often in hand to reproduce the 
features of their contemporaries, or embody some pleasing fantasy. 


EHNAMELLED FAIENCE. 


eae 


Glagure, enamel, glaze—Greek vases—A supper @ U’antique at Madame Lebrun’s— 
Ornamentation and employment of Greek vases—Roman pottery at Rome and in 
Gaul—Medieval and modern enamelled pavements—Faiences d’Oiron, called 
“Service de Henri II.”—M. Benjamin Fillon discovers the secret of their origin 
in the neighbourhood of Fontenay-le-Comte—Gouffier family—Heéléne de Hangest, 
Francois Charpentier, her potter, and Jean Bernart, her librarian. 

Majolica comes from the island of Majorca—The Alhambra vase —Valence manufac- 
ture—The secret of lustres and irisations, 

Luca della Robbia—His first works at Florence, as-architect, sculptor, painter and 
decorator—Andrea and Girolamo della Robbia—Modern attempts. 

_ Origin of Italian majolica—Its success in Italy and France—Faenza manufactures— 
The book of Piccolpasso, the potter—Book of Giambattista Passeri, the antiquary— 
Manufactures of Pesaro, Castel Durante and Deruta—Metallic lustres of Fr. 
Xanto, and Maestro Giorgio—Existing manufacture of the Marquis Ginori— 
False amateurs. . 

Bernard Palissy—His birth—His first book, “ Récepté véritable ”—His stay in Paris— 
Second book, “ Discours admirables’’—Story of his studies and vexations told by 
himself in the “ Art de Terre”—His portrait—His grottos and other works—His 
tragic death—His imitators. 

Nevers Faience, from Louis, Duke of Gonzaga, to the present day—Practical notions 
about the art of faience—Rouen Faience, its triumph and decay—Faiences 
of Moustiers, Marseilles, Rennes, &c. 

Modern attempts—Minton and Lessore—Enamelled lava—Faiences of Persia, India 
and Rhodes—A,. de Beaumont—The brothers Deck, &c,—Printing on faience, 

Gres de Flandre and terre de pipe—Ziegler. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 


Aumost immediately after the invention of Ceramic manufacture,— 
properly so called,—that is to say, of terra cotta, the application thereto 
of glaze or colouring enamels must have improved and given to it a 
peculiar physiognomy. 

What we term glagure, is a light varnish, which enlivens and har- 
monises the porous surface of terra cotta. In its simple state it is a 
mixture of silex and lead, and in this state it is transparent, as we find 
it on antique vases: when vitrifiable, and mixed with tin, as in 
the case of majolicas, it is called enamel; and when of vitrifiable and 
earthen substance, such as can only be melted at the temperature 
required for the baking of the paste itself, it is known as glaze, or 
couverte, and can be identified in the Persian faiences and Flemish 
stoneware. 

The bricks brought from the banks of the Euphrates are enamelled. 
The Egyptians employed glaze, and the little figures they have left 
us of gods or animals in turquoise blue, or sea-green, are cleverly 
coloured pastes of the greatest antiquity. 

The colours are obtained by the mixture of metallic oxides with the 
flux or emollient used after the baking, to make them adhere com- 
pletely to the surface of the clay. The palette of a Chinese ceramist 
which we may take as our model, for it contains all that the decorator 
can possibly desire in the way of brilliancy and diversity of tone, is 
thus composed: oxide of copper, for greens and greenish blues; gold, 
for reds; oxide of cobalt, for blues; oxide of antimony, for reds ; 


22 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


arsenic and stannic acid, for whites. The intermediate tones which may 
boast of having fascinated European chemists, have had the effect of 
suggesting to Sevres the textual copy of pictures, an exercise of inge- 
nuity which cannot possibly be the legitimate aim of this kind of art. 

The artists of antiquity, who were in constant relation with Asia 
Minor, cannot possibly have been ignorant of the secret of the appli- 
cation of enamels or colours to clay. With the exception, however, of 
some fragments of vases, one of which represents a comic mask, 
enamelled in yellow, black and red, Ancient Greece and Italy have 
bequeathed to us nothing which can properly be called painted 
faience.* The Greeks possessed a surpassing sentiment of harmony. 
Thanks to a concourse of peculiar circumstances—to their Asiatic 
origin, their luminous climate, the beautiful outlines of their land- 
scape, their philosophy, their social constitution, their intellectual 
superiority to the surrounding populations, and even the youthful 
virility to which humanity attained in their time, theirs was the 
unrivalled privilege to enjoy for a century and a half that serenity 
of soul to which the creation of great works is a natural instinct. 
Their pottery, no less than their sculpture, reveals their exquisite 
taste and the perfect equilibrium of their life. Simple and noble 
forms must have sprung up under the hand of the potter, like flowers 
from a vigorous stem. Destined for the adornment of temples, or the 
repasts of a cultivated and refined society, for the prizes of games and 
contests, or the decoration of tombs, these vases were decorated 
naturally with mystic or bacchanalian scenes, sacred fables, and figures 
of charioteers and gladiators. 

The Greek colony which established itself in Etruria, brought with 
it, scarcely modified at all, the stencilled outlines which had previously 
been traced at Athens, or elsewhere in Greece. It has even been 
ascertained that the Htruscan potters had ceased to understand the 
mystic sense of the allegories or historical facts, the representation of 
which they continued to repeat for centuries, to meet the cpameng of 
their Italian purchasers. | 


* It is, doubtless, in allusion to some fresco that this curious passage of Pliny 
refers: ““When Murena and Varro were ediles, they caused to be brought from 
Lacedzemon the whole of a brick wall for the adornment of the market-place on the 
election day. So rich was the painting on this wall, and the more admirable and 
excellent the painting on it, the more wonderful was it how the wall could have been 
removed and transported entire to Rome.” 


| HENAMELLED FAIENCE. 23 


_ Works of immense erudition have been published in Germany, 
Italy, England, and France, on ancient fictile art, or rather on Greek 
and Roman vases. What has chiefly occupied the writers of these 
works is the age of the vases, their nationality, the meaning of the 
sacred, profane, tragic, comic, or household scenes that adorn them, 
and the names of the gods, heroes, and other personages inscribed 
over the figures represented thereon. They have done their utmost 
to explain the use and character of the objects which these vases 
- represent, such as beds, chairs, stools, tables, stuffs, jewel-caskets, arms, 
implements, sacrificial instruments, and altars. They have helped us 


es : oS 2 


a //7/7// 


VASE WITH BLACK GROUND. 
(Etruscan manufacture.) 


to resuscitate the manners and customs of antiquity, and have even 
succeeded, by the classification of the purest forms, the noblest orna- 
ments, the best-composed scenes, in establishing the chronology of the 
rise aad fall of ancient Greek or Italian art. Unfortunately, all these 
resulis are presented in a phraseology bristling with Greek and Latin, 
end in bulky folios of most unattractive appearance. 

It is much to be wished that benevolent savans, like the Baron de 
Wytte for example, should do over again, for minds of ordinary capa- 
city, what has thus been done only for the learned. It is impossible 


24 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


to contemplate without a sort of superstitious reverence all this in- 
dustry, ennobled as it is by the hands of so many great artists, and 
the actual use which has been made of it by the whole society of 
antiquity. How often, in inspecting the treasures of some museum 
of ancient art, is one not tempted to ask one’s self, if this be not 
perhaps the very cup in which Alexander sipped to try his physician, 
or that vase of red earth be not one in which Plato may have bu 
his hands when he sat down to the banquet ? 

The study of antique vases dates especially from the last years of 
the seventeenth century. A hundred years later it was all the rage. 
Madame Lebrun gives us in her “ Mémoires,” which would have 
ensured her the reputation of a clever woman, even if her brush had 
not made her famous, an account of an archeological feast, the idea of 
which was suggested to her by a perusal of the “ Voyages en Greéce 
du Jeune Anacharsis,” by the Abbé Barthélemy. “ When I ceme to 
the place where, in describing a Greek dinner, he explains ths way 
of making several sauces, I immediately sent for my cook, and set her 
to work at once. As I was expecting some very pretty women among 
my guests, I took it into my head that we would all adopt Grecian 
costumes. My studio, full of draperies of all sorts for the adomment 
of my models, supplied a sufficiency of garments, and the Co: nt de 
Parois, who was then lodging in my house in the Rue de Clér , had 
a beautiful collection of Etruscan vases. I told him of mys bis. 
and he brought me a number of antique cups, bowls and vy 
made my seiection, and placed them on an uncovered malogany 
table, eacce ” The guests arrived; Madame Chalgrin, the daaghter 
of Joseph Vernet, Lebrun-Pindare, to whom was allotted a 
laurels. Monsieur de Parois dressed himself up as Anacreon.,. . 
“My daughter,” she adds, “ who was charming (as is proved dy her 
portrait at the Louvre), and Mademoiselle Bonneuil (who afterwards, 
under the Empire, became the beautiful Madame Regnault de Saint 
Jean d’Angely) were exquisite to look at, each holding up very 
light antique vase, and preparing to offer it to us to drink ‘rom.” 
It is only the eighteenth century which had wit and humour e ngh 
to laugh with such grace at the mania for the antique. 

Under the Empire it was proposed and even attempted to Sntnetic 
again, for common use, all the old shapes for utensils and cups, as we 
ag their austere style of decoration. | 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 25 


But the fact that they were no longer in accordance with the 
manners, customs, and fashions of that period was quite forgotten. 
In a sunny climate, full of warmth of colouring, among interiors of 
houses painted with sharp and decided tints, amidst people who wore 
purple cloaks or light-coloured tunics, this style of decoration, with a 
red or a black ground, formed a repose for the eye. But, coming 
from the hands of our porcelain manufacturers, it appeared dull and 
hard ; in the hands of decorative painters, who could neither under- 
stand nor perceive the elegance of figures expressed only by a neat 
and distinct outline, the heads became distorted, and the attitudes as 
stiff and angular as those of a lay figure. Besides this, the style and 
shade of colouring became exaggerated, and notwithstanding the 
habit of taking exact copies of statues and bas-reliefs, the examples 
of coloured earthenware left to us by Athens and South Italy were 
quite forgotten. 

These are covered with gilt ornaments, sometimes in relief, which 
breaks the monotony of a mere silhouette. We hear of certain bowls 
at the bottom of which, while the earth was still in a soft and im- 
pressible condition, the potter cleverly applied a mould of the Syra- 
cusan medallion, which is the purest example of antique numismatic 
art. The most celebrated of these vases ornamented in relief is that 
of Cume, a hydria or ewer, which at one time would have become the 
property of France, had not Russia selected it in the Campana Col- 
lection before France had made known her mind on the subject, and 
it is now one of the ornaments in the Hermitage Museum at St. 
Petersburg. The lower part of it is fluted, and the upper 1s com- 
posed of a bas-relief coloured and gilt, consisting of ten figures, the 
principal of which are Triptolemus and Ceres; in another frieze, on 
the most projecting portion of the spout, are walking figures of 
panthers, lions, dogs and griffins; round the mouth of the vase is 
wound a wreath of gilt myrtle-leaves. The figures are dressed in 
bright-coloured garments, blue, red and green, and where, in some of 
the heads, the gilding has been rubbed off, you can perceive the 
delicacy of the hand which worked it to be as great as that with 
which a cameo is executed. It is called the Cumean vase, because it 
was originally found in the necropolis of that city. Far from having 
the horror that our modern professors express for polychromic art, 
the ancients, on the contrary, made it contribute to the decoration of 


26 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


the exterior as well as the interior of their dwellings: there is absolute 
proof of the fact that the Greeks coloured their marble statues, as did 
the Romans their bronze busts. 

The memorable discoveries in the tombs of Vulci in 1828 and 1829, 
tended greatly to modify the direction that the study of ancient 
Ceramic art was taking. ‘The report of it by Professor Edouard 
Gerhard, of Berlin, in 1831, made a great sensation in the scientific 
world. In the present day the excavations at Nineveh, at different 
times by Messieurs Botta, Flandin, Layard, and Place, showed the 


. Br AN N 
fe UM OL Q Je p92 skal 


ST 


THE VASE OF NICOSTHENES, 
(Museum of Napoleon III.), 


close contact of the Assyrian art with that of the Greek potters, In 
1844, Charles Lenormant estimated the number of painted vases 
discovered in the space of two centuries to be no less than 50,000. 
Since then scarcely more than 2000 or 8000 have been collected, 
The Renaissance did not trouble itself much about them, except with 
a view of imitating some of its rhytons or ewers without retaining 
their stiffness; at any rate some are to be traced on the aisha 
and cupboards in the houses of the wealthy, 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE, 27 


With the exception of the Panathenaic amphore, offered to the 
Greek conquerors of the arena, full of the oil of the olives sacred to 
Minerva, one can scarcely venture to speculate on the character and 
intended use of the great number of different articles which have 
descended to us, and which, judging by the degree of finish to which 
they were brought, must have cost vast sums of money to complete. 
The black vases were doubtless for common use among the servants ; 
the others can only have been designed for ornament. They were 
buried beside those who had owned and cherished them, but it is 
seldom that they are found to contain human ashes. 

Some of the antique vases have signatures upon them. Nearly a 
hundred names of artists have been revealed; but a whole series of 
vases, the figures of which are black on a white ground, are signed 
by a potter named Nicosthenes, whose taste, whether as a manufacturer 
or a decorator, must have been exquisite. The vase, which is now in 
the possession of M. de Blacas, was found at Agrigentum. The one 
_ here represented, together with all those of the Campana collection, 
came from Coire, 

The paintings are generally of Bacchanalian subjects; this was 
supposed to excite the ardour of guests: also representations of 
Olympian divinities, the labours of Hercules, or the Trojan War. 
Sometimes the subjects were borrowed from the theatre, from the 
thousands of incidents of common life, such as bathing, hunting, 
dancing, dressing, the repast, and funereal games, the latter of which 
belong chiefly to the last period in which the art of painting on 
pottery flourished. 

Inscriptions scrawled with singular carelessness, as if the artist 
wished to keep the subject a secret to himself, consist of the names 
of mythological personages, sentences, and friendly or admiring 
exclamations, “Oh! beautiful child!” or, “Oh! what a handsome 
horse!” The Renaissance imitated these inscriptions in the articles 
of majolica which it was customary to offer on the occasion of a 
betrothal. 

The “hydria” here given belongs to the latter half of the seventh 
century before Christ, and was modelled by the Corinthian potters of 
Demarates. It is remarkable for the meanders and scrolls, the gadroons 
in the archaic style, and for the checkered zone which forms, as it were, 
a framework to the whole. The inscriptions on it are greatly ob- 


28 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


literated and scarcely legible, but the figures clearly represent the 
parting between Hector and Andromache. For some centuries all 
the ornamented potteries of the Roman world were produced by the 
colonists or wandering artists of Greece. 

At one time they were esteemed as the greatest luxury, and were 
made use of even as an instrument of electioneering corruptions. 


RTT NCS 
C/@VVS 


Nicconeee = 

KKK KK KIKI AAATA AVA, AVY 

OK) x) XX KXKKKLKK KKK KY VV) 
RSG SKK KK RK KEN A KN 


XX 


er 1/00 Se 


HYDRIA IN THE CORINTHIAN STYLE, 
(Museum of Napoleon III.) 


Quintus Aponius was fined for “bribery and corruption,” for having 
presented one, whose vote he desired to win and make sure of, with 
an earthen amphora or jug. <A tragic actor, named Esop, gave 
sixty crowns for one plate or dish. The Romans, always more 
practical than artistic, were in the habit of imparting a character of 
strength and usefulness to the pottery in daily use. 

Most of our southern provinces have retained the original forms in 
their jars for oil and wine. In a tour through the Pyrenees, at 


ENAMELLED FAIENCEH. 29 


Bagnéres de Bigorre, we have observed women going to draw water 
with large earthen amphore balanced on their heads, of the same shape 
as those which were used by the slaves of Atticus or Cicero. 

The Ceramic history of Gaul will be found closely to resemble that 
of all other countries in their infancy, when the great and original 
idea of Lelewel shall have been carried out, of organizing some museum 
where the products of every nation’s civilization may be placed in 
juxtaposition for comparison. 


ue mI sees on 


: mee 


FRAGMENTS OF ROMAN POTTERY. 
(Found in Vendée.) 


The above bowl is a type of most of the Gallo-Roman pottery 
found in Paris and the provinces, whenever excavations bring any 
antiquities to light. This one was found at Jart (in Vendée) in 
a tomb of the first half of the third century. It bears in relief the 
name of Paternus, its supposed potter. In many cases the figures 
are cast separately and then fastened on. The earth, which is very 
fine and slightly mixed with ashes, is generally red, sometimes 
black. Some of the potteries discovered in Poitou reveal a very 
curious system of ornamentation, which consisted in placing natural 


Ros MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


leaves of plants or trees on the inside of the mould when still in a 
soft and semi-liquid state, so as to leave not only the impression om 
their shape, but also that of their veinings. 

During the middle ages the shapes were, for the most part, of a 
degenerate pattern. The history of the pottery of this period would 
be merely a local one. The most remarkable application of terra cotta 
or earthenware, either enamelled or not, consisting of coloured clays 
inlaid or placed in juxtaposition, so as to present the appearance of 
tapestry by means of the same contrasts and harmonies, were in the 
form of floorings or pavements. The enamelled pavement was one of 
the last manifestations of polychromic sentiment among the ancients ; 
they had already had the inlaid or mosaic style, and that was such a 
favourite one with them that scarcely any Roman remains are dis- 
covered without some vestiges of it. ‘They disliked the large squares 
of uniform colours presented by our wooden floorings; it seemed to 
them cold and colourless. Their ambition was to be always walking 
on floorings blazing with colour, as if decorated with the brightest 
garden flowers, and even at the door one was greeted with a word 
of welcome or of friendly warning, such as “vate!” or “CAVE CANEM |” 
They themselves had borrowed this custom from the Kast, as is 
proved by the vast spaces of tesselated pavement excavated from 
among the ruins of Babylon, which are covered with figures of men 
and animals, or inscriptions, the letters of which stand out in 
white enamel upon a blue ground. Thus it was with Egypt, and 
also with Spain and Italy. We know the motto inscribed on 
what is left of the pavement of the Alhambra: “None is strong saye 
God.” 

It was in the Church, during that twelfth century which was the 
dawn of our national Renaissance, that tesselated pavement took the 
place of a mosaic which was both costly and worthless. It was found 
to harmonize marvellously with the brilliant colours of the ceilings, 
the pillars and the walls, which shone out in streams of light from 
the stained windows, and glittered with prismatic beauty in the gold 
and precious stones-of the altars. Such was the vast carpet which 
was found to be capable of resisting the wear and tear of the constant 
feet and knee-prints of the poor. Feudalism soon took possession of 
it, and when horsemen and warriors wore the crests and livery of 
their lords on their chests, or on their sleeves as badges; when the 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 31 


coat of arms was painted, carved or woven on the door of the castle, 
and on the furniture or the hangings, it followed naturally that it 
should be also reproduced on the floors. 


ANCIENT TILES, 
(Discovered in the Department of Aisne.) 


Pavement then became like a page of heraldry, a fleur-de-lis 


32 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


rounding its petals, an eagle tightening its claws and spreading its 
wings, a lion passant, arched, and with pendant tongue, a dolphin 
with curved back and a crown on its head. Fantastic figures were 
then introduced in grotesque attitudes, sometimes a stag or a griffin 
with gaping mouth; now and then a representation of huntsmen with 
spears or horsemen in battle, fool holding a bauble, women playing 
the violin, or gipsies performing the scarf dance. 


ANCIENT TILES, 
(Discovered in the Department of Aisne.) 


Until the fifteenth century, black, white, yellow, red, or green, was 
the only ground-work to this style of decoration. These were quite 
sufficient to satisfy the artist’s love of harmony. Later on, the 
style became mannered in its aim at refinement. In comparing 
the specimens of tesselated pavement that are given in a work of 
Monsieur Edouard Fleury with other examples of decorative art of a 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 33 


later period, such as iron gates or stained windows, our readers will 
feel how close the connexion is between them all; how much the 
architects, painters and sculptors of that time felt the necessity of 
combining their genius to produce the desirable unity and impressive- 
ness suitable in all public buildings, be they religious; civil, or 
military. How profoundly national is this period of our history, and 
what splendid examples should we have now, if these structures had 
been carefully preserved as were those of the Italian Renaissance ! 

The potters of the Laonnese province, whence came some very 
interesting remains of square pavement, were in the habit of using 
common brick or tile clay, called brown argile. As a raw material, 
and when passed through the furnace, it is infusible, and becomes of 
a reddish-brown ; when washed and stirred, it changes to a light 
yellow colour ; butif washed and then subjected to violent heat; it takes 
a bright red tint. To obtain the black, the furnace is heated with alder- 
wood, which having been steeped in water for a number of months, 
gives forth a quantity of dense smoke. The white is produced with 
pipeclay. The enamel consists of lead varnish. After the clay had 
been sufficiently beaten, and cut into squares of the size and thickness 
required, so as to receive the coloured earth wherewith to make the 
figurés, the mould, with the required design in relief, was set firmly on 
it, and the whole was then submitted to the strong and equal pressure 
of a heavy weight; then the depressions on the surface were filled in 
with coloured earth, pressed hard; in order that it might adhere 
closely, and placed in the furnace. Sometimes—but that was subse- 
quent to the fifteenth century—they applied to the pavement which 
had to be ornamented, when in a soft state; a thin piece of wood or 
metal pierced with an open design, by drawing a point round the 
open spaces a furrow was left which was filled in with clay of the 
desired sort. Afterwards (but it could then no longer be called a pro- 
cess of incrustation), instead of a point a paint-brush was introduced, 
filling the spaces with vitrifiable colour. It will be observed, from the 
examples of pavement here given, which are always square, that when 
placed in juxta-position by fours or nines, or even by sixteens, they 
formed one large design,—one vast composition, intertwining leaves and 
multiplying flowers, scenes and devices, in a most graceful manner. 

Thanks to the reaction in favour of the French Middle Ages, intro- 
duced by the romantic school of 1825, and by the works of Mons. 

D 


34 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ALT. 


Viollet le Duc, by the courageous polemics of special publications, 
such as the “ Annales Archéologiques,” the eyes of the public have been 
directed to the decorative art of that period. Artists of eminence 
were requested to superintend the restoration of those monuments 
which it was desirable to renovate. It is thus that Mons. Steinheil 
designed for the Sainte Chapelle the pavement which is represented 
in our illustration. 

Notwithstanding the ‘ianiealen: he borrowed from a past century 
in the decorative art, it is impossible for anything to be more original 
in idea, or more entirely his own production. The example was good ; 
so he followed it. Incrusted or inlaid pavement is to be found in 
all modern edifices having any pretensions to decorative art; the eye 
meets with more repose and softness in it than in glazed faience, 
while it finds more variety than it does in marble. ‘The Ceramic 
Museum at Sevres offers specimens of all sorts and of all periods for 
those amateurs who are desirous of increasing their stock of knowledge 
in such matters. | 

This process of incrusting clay, and covering it with a slight glaze, 
was practised with more or less success and perseverance in all the 
provinces, and it gave birth to a series of articles, the origin of which 
has, until these latter years, been an impenetrable mystery, and the 
original use of which, as much as the rareness of them, excited the 
curiosity and the envy of all amateurs. I allude to the ware attributed 
to Henry Il., which was wittily denominated “the ge and the 
‘phoenix of dose? 

Mons. André Pottier, in the “Monuments Franti Inedits,” by 
‘Willemin, was the first to draw the attention of amateurs to a splendid 
ewer, then one of the collection of the Baron de Monvyille. This was 
in 1839. In studying this peculiar kind both of ware and of decora- 
tion, no less than twenty-four pieces of the same family, which, 
owing to the initial cypher of Henry II. on some of them—C’s and 
H’s placed back to back, and interlaced—they were all classed as 
“the dinner-service of Henry II.” Soon after this Mons. du 
Sommerard, in his album, the “Arts of the Middle Ages,” published 
three of these pieces, which were then ornamenting the Pourtalés and 
Préault cabinets. The imagination of amateurs and critics became 
excited; much speculation went abroad on the subject; romances 
‘were composed with these for their theme; some insisted that they . 


|: artis, © € CTPeqULaS [AL 39 SUStsep Os Aeigh PoivoA ns 


‘A TIUAVHO DLINIVS AHL AO SaTIL SNIAVd 


BSaqOUl Eg 400} g~ 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 35 


came from the studio of a sculptor named Ascanio, the pupil of 
Benvenuto Cellini; others that they were modelled by Girolamo della 
Robbia, whom Francis I. summoned over from Italy to decorate the 
terra cottas of the Chateau de Madrid; others again suggested that 
they came from Lyons, or from England; later on it was believed 
that the artist-printer Geoffroy Tory, whose sign was, “The Broken 
Vessel,” had printed in the sides of the flagon some typographic orna- 
ments which resembled niello; then that some Florentine prince had 
sent them as a present to the husband of Catharine de Medicis. 

During this period the number of them increased but little. Even 
now it has only attained to fifty-four, and we must give up the 
hope of seeing it increase, for the enormous prices that these pieces 
have fetched at recent sales have been an affliction to amateurs and 
dealers, as well as to impoverished heirs. One of the prettiest 
specimens known, is the bowl that Sauvageot left to the Louvre ; it 
was bought by him for the sum of 200 francs. In 1835 the celebrated 
ewer of M. de Monyille fetched the sum of 2500 frances, which seems a 
large amount. At the Rattier sale (1859) a salt-cellar sold for 12,500 
francs. At the sale of Lassayette (1862) a restored candlestick, with 
the meanest ornamentation, went for 16,000 francs, and was after- 
wards sold in England for 18,000 francs, now in the South Kensington 
Museum ; and, finally, at the Pourtalés sale—although the secret had 
then been sifted—a beberon was bought for 27,500 francs by J. Mal- 
colm, Esq., of London. 

They were analysed and assimilated by Mons. Brongniart to what 
is commonly called terre de pipe. It is thus that he describes, in his 
“Traité des Arts Céramiques,” the process by which they were made. 
A close examination of a fragment contained in the Sevres Museum, 
shows us that the groundwork of the piece was first made without any 
sort of relief or ornament. It does not seem either to have been 
turned, but merely thinly moulded, and reduced to the same substance 
and thickness throughout by means of equal pressure. This first 
layer was covered with a very thin coating of the same substance, 
and on this were placed the ornaments, heads, and the glaze. He 
even had one copied by some of the more able hands of the manu- 
factory. It is, in fact—but in a refined and more minute way— 
the same process as that above described with reference to the squares 
for pavement ; neatness of touch was all that was wanted in using the 

D 2 


36 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


clay, for colouring, to supply the hollow lines and delicate ribbons 
here represented. 

A catalogue was made of all the pieces of this ware, sits in France 
and elsewhere, in public and in private collections, and also, what was 
more useful, or at least more publicly practicable, the entire series was 
copied in chromo-lithography. But still the mystery was undiscovered. 
The only curious fact was, that all these candle-sticks, bowls, ewers, 
biberons, salt-cellars, pots for containing wax, &c., were originally 
found in France, and chiefly in Touraine. The amateur world played, 
as it were, at that child’s game in which exclamations of “ You burn !” 

r “You freeze!” denote the proximity or the distance of the player 
to or from the given spot. Hvery one was “burning.” That spot — 
was in Poitou, at the castle of Oiron, and thus it was that Mons. 
Benjamin Fillon found it out by one of those strange chances of which 
none but clever and learned heads know how to take advantage. 

An antiquary one day exhibited to him the-two fly-leaves of an old 
prayer-book on parchment, which had been illuminated with elaborate 
ornaments and miniatures, by Claude Gouffier, grand equerry to 
Henry II., as well as his personal friend. One of these miniatures, 
surrounded by the motto which Gouffier had adopted, and which was 
also that of Hrasmus—Hie terminus heret—with highly ornamented 
framework round the picture, which represented a rustic repast in 
harvest time, in July; a young woman is making a sign to a man 
who is drinking, to prevent his draining to the bottom an éarthen 
gourd, To most people the presence of this gourd would have been 
but of little importance, but M. Fillon was struck with the yellowish 
hue of the gourd and the black interlaced ribbons, as well as with the 
armorial bearings of Gouffier stamped on it. On returning to his 
province M. Fillon paid a visit to Oiron, the residence of the equerry 
of France, now in ruins. At every turn he met with scraps of archi- 
tecture or ornamentation which he found to be in accordance both with 
the gourd in the missal painting, and with more than one piece of the 
mysterious set. The minute investigations which he made into the 
origin and antecedents of the Gouftier family furnished him with so 
large a handful of incontestable pron that he made up his mind to 
pLheh his discovery. 

In 1450, William Goufter, ikon the protecting insane of Agnes 
aiid received several estates, and, among others, that of Oiron. One 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 37 


of his sons, Artus by name, was taken off to Italy by Louis XIL., and 
appointed tutor to the young Duke of Valois, who was afterwards to 
become Francis I. He was a man of taste and erudition. His wife, 
Helen of Hangest, also was a remarkably intelligent woman, and it is 
probable that their august pupil owed to them much of the respect he 


OIRON POTTERY. 
VASE FOR HOLDING HOLY WATER. s EWER. BASIN WITH COVER. 


(Sauvageot Museum.) (Hope Collection, London.) (Sauvageot Museum.) 


subsequently evinced for artists and men of science. In 1519 Helen 
became a widow, and that same year Francis I. confided to her the 
care and education of his second son, who afterwards became‘Henry IT. 
After 1524, although she did not altogether cease to frequent the 
Court, Helen resided often at her seat of Oiron, which, with the con- 


38 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


sent of her eldest son, Claude Gouffier, she restored and embellished. 
She died in 1567. 

It was there, in order to divert her mind during the eighteen years 
of her widowhood, that Helen directed or presided over the ceramic 
works of “her potter, Francis Charpentier, and of her secretary, and 
librarian, John Bernart.” Various incontestable documents leave 
no doubt as to the certainty of the fact that these three were fellow- 
workers together, and the pieces of the so-called “Service of Henry IT.” 
are now more modestly designated as “ Oiron faience.” 

The fifty-four pieces extant of the Oiron ware, which had for its 
original object the imitation of Oriental porcelain, can now be divided — 
into three groups. In the first period the incrusted ornaments are 
chiefly of one single colour, or at most tinted with a brownish-black, 
or lighter brown, or a very dark crimson. The pieces are decorated 
with the arms of the lords of Bressiure, of Gilles de Laval, or of la 
Trémouille. They were evidently made singly, for presents, and not 
as forming part of a set, and this again is an argument in favour of 
their scarceness. “ Bernart bestowed on it his talent for ornamenta- 
tion, Charpentier his neatness of touch in handling the lay, and Helen 
her exquisite but somewhat sadly-toned refinement of taste.” 

Then this triple association of the workman, the man of learning, 
and the noble woman, was cut asunder by the unscrupulous hand of 
death, and each time that one of these was taken away a decline was 
visible in the artistic merit of the productions. In the second period, 
that which extended from 1537 to 1550, in which Bernart no longer 
figures as a member of the household estate, one misses the “inter- 
vention of a man whose love for books made him well acquainted with 
the practical and material part of their construction.” The pieces 
affect an architectural form, the good taste of which is doubtful, and 
they have mostly been much restored and altered in recent times. 
We find the crest of the Montmorency family, and the arms of 
Henry Il.; but it must not be forgotten that those have mostly been 
added by the restorers at the very time when the denomination of 
“Service of Henry IT.” was universally accepted. Had it been other- 
wise, the commercial value of it would have been lowered. 

It is now well ascertained that the letters of the royal cypher were 
two C’s interlaced in an H; that is to say, the initial letters of 
Catherine and of Henry ; and that if the malignity of the Court pro- 


x 


nl 


yy 
’ 
fr 


! 


bn 


BIBERON OF OIRON FAYENCE, 


(In the possession of J. Malcolm, Esq., London.) 


Page 38. 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE. 39 


fessed to see in it the additional cypher of Diana, the favourite was 
only reaping the benefit of a bit of royal deception. The emblem 
or crest of Diana of Poictiers was an arrow surrounded with a band 
of ribbon, on which was traced this motto: Sola vivit in dalla, or 
Consequitur quodewmque petit. Nor is there anything to prove 
that examples of this ware, in which the Crescent—the royal mono- 
gram or coat of arms—is visible, ever were the property of the 
King ; they figure there as on the furniture, on the counters, and 
on the walls of the castle of Anet; they are merely a date, or testi- 
mony of affection or gratitude towards the Royal person. Thus it is, 
too, with the Salamander of Francis I. If any one should insist that 
for this reason they were the real and personal property of the King, 
it may as well be pretended that the numerous articles bearing the 
fleur-de-lis of the ancient Royal family formed a part of the actual 
furniture of the Crown. 

A fabrication of so exceptional a nature, exclusively for furnishing 
the sideboards or the dispensaries of one family and those of its 
friends, could not be carried on as an industrial art. Circumstances 
soon occurred to put an end to it. The grand equerry was obliged to 
abandon his castle, which was threatened by the Protestants at the 
time of the contest in 1562, and it was devastated in 1568. It is of 
the period of this interval that Monsieur Fillon supposes those pieces 
to have been of which we have as yet no catalogue, and which are 
naturally of less value than the rest. ‘These were probably the work 
of some workmen to whom the prepared material was handed ; for on 
those which have only passed through the furnace we find the old 
stamps, and even the same old shapes and traditional forms. They 
are chiefly plates and dishes, fountains for the table, salt-cellars, 
and jugs. 

We interrupted ourselves in order to give the still very recent 
solution of the problem which had most excited the curiosity of 
amateurs. ‘The truth is, that, as a whole, the Oiron faience does not 
deserve the vogue and renown which it has had, and will continue to 
enjoy for some time to come. The bowl with a cover, which we 
have reproduced, and which was left to the museum of the Louvre by 
Sauvageot, cost him 200 francs. Well and good. Add to this 
another 0 in order to testify to its rarity, and to make it more in 
accordance with the prices given at the Hétel Droudt. But if it be 


40 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


first to estimate the actual value of these various series by their 
relative merit, there are a thousand articles, Oriental, Italian or 
French, in faience, porcelain, bronze, gold or enamel, which are 
greatly superior to these, the shapes of which are of a very poor 
conception. The goblets were copies of the splendid specimens in 
bronze, gold, or tin which were brought from Italy, or which Etienne 
Delaulne used to draw. But in the second period designs of satyrs — 
tails, or those of chimeric figures fantastically twisted, were intro- 
duced by way of handles. Small figures of children, supporting 
candles on their heads, are utterly without genius or even merit: the 
salt-cellars are short and inelegant structures ; finally, the ornamenta- 
tion, which in certain of the pieces is pretty, is borrowed from the 
chapter-heads and vignettes of the charming books of this period ; but 
they greatly lose by their translation into earthenware. To the 
infinite surprise of all, the South Kensington Museum went as high 
in its bidding as 30,000 francs for an object, the composition of which 
was of no practical interest, and, besides, the museum had already 
specimens of it m its possession; and this is more to be deplored, 
because, had this sum been offered to an eminent Ceramic artist, it 
would have afforded him leisure and opportunity to make real triumphs 
of artistic genius* It is easy to imitate this Oiron pottery.{, Who 
knows whether specimens of it, now held up to our admiration, are 
any older than yesterday ? Nothing is easier of reproduction than — 
these articles, upon which the hand of genius has not bestowed its 
princely touch . . . . Monsieur Avisseau, jun., of Tours, whom we 
shall further have occasion to mention when speaking of Bernard 
Palissy, has showed us that the imitation of these incrusted coloured 
clays is mere child’s play. 

We must now retrace our steps, and after launching on the 
Mediterranean, that blue lake so well calculated to inspire the muse of 
artists, we touch at the coast of Spain and the Balearic Islands, It is 
no longer to be doubted, after the solution of certain yexed questions 
concerning their origin, that it was there in the Island of Majorca 
that the Moorish potters first established themselves. Consequently, 


* This specimen was not bought for the South Kensington Museum, but for J. 
Malcolm, Esq.—Eb. 

t+ We do not admit the easy imitation of this faience. Those we have seen, made in 
France or England, are of a denser paste, and the inerustation is effected in a different 
manner. No collector could be deceived by such copies.—Eb. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 41 


a whole series of potteries, selected from what, as a whole, was termed 
Majolica ware, or, later on, siculo-Arabic, is now denominated as 
“ Hispano-Moorish.” ‘This, together with the porcelain of Persia, is 
the richest decoration that can be bestowed on a dining-room sideboard, 
or on the wall-brackets of a studio. These basins of huge dimensions, 
which are flashed by metallic oxides with lightning like the jet of 
incandescent gas in a fire, and whereon are blazoned animals treading 


‘HISPANO-MOORISH DISH. 
(Soltikoff Collection.) 


mottoes and labelled war-cries under their feet as they would the 
briars of a heraldic forest; these rude and delicate witnesses of war, 
and of the art and industry of the fifteenth century of Spain, open 
with unequalled force and gracefulness a wide world to the study 
of enamelled plates and dishes of enamelled faience. Italy herself, in 


42 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


her best periods of taste, by softening the stiff style of the Majolica 
ware, caused it to become mannered and fantastic, and by the substi- 
tution of actual scenes for the summary and sufficient indications of 
semi-chimeric creatures originated its downfall. In this case the 
artist and the artisan, the mind which invents and the hand which 
creates, were so intimately connected, that we do not even think of 
ascertaining whether they were not one and the same person. In it 
we see one of the loveliest flowers which Moorish art caused to bloom 
on Spanish soil. . 

The chief establishment of Hispano-Moorish pottery is supposed to 
have existed at Malaga. The secrets of the art were certainly im- 
parted there, either by the Arabs or by the conquering Moors. Per- 
haps, also, they came from Persia. The secret of making glazed 
tiles with a metallic lustre upon them, such as those which were 
found in the ruins of Mesopotamia, especially at Khorsabad, ought 
never to have been lost, in the midst of a-nation endowed with so 
refined and keen a sense for decorative art. ‘Towards the year 1350, 
a traveller, named Ibn-Batoutah, a native of Tangiers, who had been 
over a great portion of the East, mentioned, as a principal product of 
exportation, “the beautiful pottery, or gilt earthenware, which is 
manufactured at Malaga.” The Italians were so delighted with 
them, that they inserted them into the facades of their churches, or of 
their campaniles, at Pisa, at Pavia, and on San Francesca, at Rome. 

The glazed and ornamented tiles which covered the walls in Spain 
were called “azulejos.” It was considered a rather expensive luxury, 
for Sancho Panza observes, in mentioning a poor man, to his master: 
“He will never have azulejos on his house!” The date of the “Torre 
del Vino,” in the Alhambra, which contains some very splendid speci- 
mens of it, is 1345. All the courts of this palace, the object of which 
was to shut out that implacable enemy of Spain, the mid-day sun, 
were paved with it. It is there that is still to be seen the celebrated 
vase of the Alhambra, whereof a learned traveller, M. Davyillier, 
brought back some tracings precise enough to enable the Brothers 
Deck to imitate it: at any rate, in the knots, and interlaced designs 
of its splendid ornamentation. It is of earthenware, the ground is 
white, and ornaments of blue in two shades, or of a prismatic 
copper colour, are clearly delineated on it. In the middle of these 
interlaced knots are Arabic characters, ornaments in themselves ; 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 43 


above is an elegant inscription, running all around, and signifying 
an exclamation to the glory of God; in the middle of a painted 
medallion, like a Moorish arcade, are two large antelopes, ad- 
vancing to meet one another. No jewellery can exceed the bril- 


HISPANO-MOORISH VASE, 
(Museum of Cluny.) 


liancy and freshness of this piece of workmanship. It is said, by 
tradition, to have been found in the sixteenth century, full of gold 
pieces, together with several others, that have been either broken or 


44 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


stolen. Monsieur Théophile Gautier, in his “Tra los Montes,” men- 
tions the miserable state of neglect in which, even recently, lay, “ to 
the shame of Granada, the magnificent vase of the Alhambra, which 
stands nearly four feet in height, a monument of inestimable rarity, 
that would, in itself and alone, be the glory of any museum, con- 
demned by eran? a vs and sloth to moulder away unheeded in 
a filthy corner.’ 

The productions of the manufactories in Valencia, whose furnaces 
had not been extinguished since the period of the Roman occupation, 
are distinguished by an eagle of a semi-heraldic nature, which family 
of sacred birds no naturalist has yet ventured to, classify. The eagle 
often occupies the whole bottom of the dish, and sometimes the sides 
of it as well; from its beak to its wing is often unfolded a ribbon, 
bearing this motto: In principio erat Verbum. The persecutions 
of the Moors in the middle of the sixteenth century forbade them to 
speak, read, or write Arabic, either inside-or out of their houses; to 
preserve books written in the Arabic tongue, or even to do any 
“Moorish work.’ Who knows whether some few families, traced 
and pursued by the Inquisition, may not have emigrated, and ee 
a home in Italy ? 

Notwithstanding the many published works on the subject, the 
classification of Hispano-Moorish products is still somewhat compli- 
cated and obscure. In order not to take leave of general divisions, we 
have been compelled to pass silently over the manufactures of Sicily, 
whose productions are, in almost every particular, similar to those 
above mentioned. 

Luca della Robbia, no doubt, only used according to his own fancy 
the process then in vogue; but it is easy to conceive how difficult it 
was to discern ard identify these first fruits of an Italian soil. 
We shall again, for many a time, find ourselves face to face with 
this difficulty; at Nevers, at Rouen, and in various other localities. 
The art of Majolica ware was Arabian, until the day when Italian 
genius modified it gradually to its own design; and it is at this point 
that we will take it up once more. | 

Our modern potters exerted themselves in the reproduction, either 
of Italian majolicas, because even the imitation of these were bought 
at very high prices, or of Persian earthenware, because they were ~ 
composed of but few tints, and that the deep red and the emerald 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE, 45 


green were colours which had been most rare, and had created the 
greatest curiosity and excitement as to their production. It would be 
as well, indeed, for us, to go back to the Hispano-Moorish majolica. 
Without exactly copying them, we might and should inspire ourselves 
with the spirit by which they were wrought. Our architects would 
there find a whole mine of materials of a marvellous richness and 
solidity. Do we not know that the palaces of the “ Arabian Nights” 
glittered with plates of the brightest scarlet, green, and amber, varied 
with polished bronze? The composition of metallic lustres is not 
lost; we still meet with it, though clumsily executed, on modern 
productions; some of them, which were to be seen at the French 
Exhibition (Palais de lIndustrie), attained to the multitudinous 
prismatic colours of mother-of-pearl. 

Monsieur Louis Carron has made some very conclusive experi- 
ments on the Hispano-Moorish lustres. He says: “Copper and 
silver were not always used simultaneously; thus, the ware covered 
with a dark red prismatic lustre contains nothing but copper; silver 
was only added to it in order to diminish the intensity of the colour, 
and to give it a softer tone.” The manipulation of it, and the study 
of the degrée of heat, are also of much more effectual importance, 
and cannot be adequately described. Formerly they were monopolized 
by the members of one corporation. It appears that the South Ken- 
sington Museum, besides the original manuscript of Piccolpasso, a 
Durantine potter, possesses also a chapter on the process of metallic 
lustre, which has never as yet been published. It is surprising that 
so liberal a museum should hitherto not have transcribed and edited 
such a curious document. 

After Italy had passionately admired enamelled ware, and when she 
attempted herself to produce it, she succeeded so suddenly and so 
triumphantly, that it was long thought—and we hitherto had no 
positive reason for disbelieving the assurance of Vasari—that Luca 
della Robbia was the inventor of that most wonderful of all produc- 
tions, the stanniferous white enamel, which is an opaque body com- 
posed of tin. 

Luca della Robbia, the head of the family whose name has never 
ceased to be popular, was born in 1399, or 1400, at Florence. After 
the manner of nearly all the great Italian sculptors of the fifteenth 
century, he was originally a goldsmith. Then he took to carving 


46 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. — 


marble, and we must class among the finest productions of all ages, 
the “ Dix Chceurs de la Musique,” which were destined for the pinnacle 
of the organ of Santa Maria del Fiore, at Florence, and which are now 
placed in the Gallery of Royal Offices. Vasari writes: “ One even seems 
to perceive the motion of the lips of the singers, the agitation of the 
hands of those who are beating time, over the shoulder of the smaller 
ones, as well as every description of games, songs, and dances, all the 
playfulness of which the sound of cheerful music suggests.” | 

In 1446, the Church accounts, in accordance with the statement of 
Vasari, mention for the first time, one of Luca della Robbia’s enamelled. 
terra-cotta’s, representing the Ascension. What can have prompted 
him to attempt this process? Was it that he found the work of 


ANS 
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Wise 


tl 


SSISNAS 
Sass 


ASE 
Gttttsh tty 


CETELEADILH: 


mu = i= Fi 
mF a a = 


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OF: 
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iy} at x" 


VENETIAN VOTTERS AT WORK ABOUT THE YEAR 1540, 
(From an engraving by Y. Biringuccio, called the “ Pirotechnie.”’) 


chiselling and scraping marble to be a tedious one? Or, was it an 

attempt to immortalize a sketch by modelling it in clay! ? Or, again, 
was it merely a branch of commercial industry which was already in 
practice among the potters of Caffagiolo, in order to tpt by a 
factitious process, the whiteness of marble ? 

We are willing to believe that he was actuated by a higher motive. 
He had cast and chiselled the gates of the vestry of Santa Maria del 
Fiore, together with Michelozzo and Mazo di Bartolomeo. No doubt, 
he wished to avoid being aided ; and, therefore, haying recourse to a 
plan which combined both the relief and the colour, he was able 
unassisted to decorate and ornament a monument, contenting himself 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE, 47 


with the general effect. “ Luca was right,” writes M. H. Barbet de 
Jouy, with remarkable keenness of apprehension and judgment, “ when 
he animated enamelled sculpture with colour ; but he was too prodigal 
of it; the huge masses of Florentine architecture are particularly 
severe and stiff, and the alternately black and white layers of stone 
would produce the effect of mourning draperies, if the monuments of 
the middle ages had not been enlivened by mosaics, which were subject 
to the rules of good taste. In the fifteenth century the Mosaic art 
became nearly extinguished; even in those places the decoration of 
which a clever architect would have handed over to him, Luca fitted 
in some of his coloured bas-reliefs. Thus, at San Miniato, it was the 
cornice of an altar, or the ceiling of an elegant chapel, the ornamenta- 
tion in relief and coloured ground-work of which blend equally with 
a marble tomb, with incrusted walls, and a mosaic pavement. On the 
great facade of Or San Michele he placed large medallions, which 
shine out with subdued brilliancy from the walls, without frame-work 
or cornice, affording as much pleasure to the eye as would a tuft of 
flowers on a neglected ruin, or on a rocky cliff. In the Church of the 
Archers at Prato, the picture is of two colours, black and white; the 
ornament which unites these two is an elegant frieze of enamelled 
terra-cotta, white reliefs upon a sky-blue ground, which gives the tone 
to the whole; a crown of flowers surrounds the top of each pilaster, 
and a given number of candelabra, to which wreaths are attached, fill 
up the spaces between the crowns. Not one of these ornaments could 
be suppressed without being missed; each one is necessary to its 
place; and when we raise our eyes from the walls to the ceiling, they 
meet with four large circular medallions, on which the Evangelists are 
represented on a blue ground, spangled with gold stars, in a happy 
combination of relief and colouring.” 

These are grand examples, gathered when Italian art was still in 
the flower of its youth. Polychromy was not yet denounced as con- 
temptible, and now that it is recovering and protesting against so 
severe and ridiculous a condemnation, it were well if our architects 
were encouraged to attempt it on vast proportions. A few years ago, 
when the town municipalities caused the two theatres which now 
stand opposite to one another on the Place du Chatelet, to be erected, the 
architect endeavoured to insert in their walls large round medallions 
in earthenware, representing Music and Poetry. But, as no other 


48 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


part of the facade was at all in keeping with their colouring, the — 
figures stood out like live figures seen through a magnifying glass; so 
they had to be removed. 

On the Boulevards we see that the gable of the house of one of the 
most eminent of photographie artists is surmounted at the top and at 
the two angles of the triangle by enamelled busts, which produce an 
excellent effect against the sky. Such an example, suggested purely by 
chance, is sufficient to prove to all beholders that this style of decoration 
would not be out of place or otherwise than agreeable in this country. 

Luca’s success was complete, inasmuch as, like all men of genius, 
he commenced and completed his invention with one stroke. The 
attitudes of his figures are always easy, the details are quiet and 
simple, and the frame-work of his compositions always consists of rows 
of pearls, Greek friezes, or thin wreaths of single or only semi-double 
flowers. ‘The enamel which he spread over the figures covered them 
without fillmg in the cavities, and without interfering with the 
minute delicacy of the moulding. | 

For scenery, garments, and other accessories he uses chiefly préen, 
blue, and white; for more prominent effects gold, yellow, and violet. 
Even these are superfluous when we see these masterpieces of chastity 
and of tender piety in museums or private collections—that is to say, 
when they are isolated from the centre for which they were originally 
designed, and hidden under a hideous coating of whitewash, however 
transparent it may be; the eye cannot become suddenly impartial or 
the mind prompt enough to remember that it is in the place for 
which they were originally made, and from whence, despite all 
logic, we have removed them, that they should be judged and criticised, 
and there only. 

The Louvre possesses an example of Luca della Robbia’s wank 
“the Virgin and St. John the Baptist worshippmg the Infant Jesus 
in the Manger”; two flymg heads of cherubims, and a border com- 
posed of nine other winged heads, are surrounded by a second border 
composed of bunches of lilies and eglantine roses. At the Museum 
of Cluny there are at least three, one Holy Family, a figure of 
Temperance, and one of Faith; they are all on a large scale; but 
executed with the most minute dticnes 

What is remarkable about the peculiar tone of this enaiels is, that 
although from its transparency it betrays the red clay underneath, it 


EHNAMELLED FAIENCE. 49 


assumes the appearance of yellow ivory. This is the incontestable 
mark of the authenticated works of the artist, which are very rare. 
In these days there are certain groups of figures which have been 
cleverly moulded in a kind of earthenware made in Tuscany, re- 
moulded and enamelled with great care, in the hope of their being 


MIMI 
Gee | basse 


GEN 
Li 


D 


THE HOLY FAMILY. ; 
(Medallion by Luca della Robbia. Museum of the Hotel Cluny, Paris.) 


smuggled in among original works, and mistaken for them. But the 
process of moulding is always to be discerned by close observation. 
Apart from the question of sentiment, which always will weigh in the 
appreciation of works of art, there is a somewhat curious method of 


E 


50 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


discovering spurious imitations ; thus, the earth, when it is going to 
be enamelled, is still in a soft state, but it shrinks and reduces itself 
in drying to almost a tenth part of what it was, and sometimes to 
less. The doubtful pieces might then be measured against those of 
which the catalogues have stated the exact dimensions. 

Luca died in 1481. He left as his heir Andrea della Robbia, at 
once his pupil and his nephew. In him we chiefly see the artisan 
and not specially the artist. He devoted himself—besides assisting his 
uncle—to medallions, the reredos of altars, and bas-reliefs generally. 
But his taste being far less refined, his expressions were mannered, 
and his attitudes stiff; and by substituting fruit for flowers in his 
garlands, he gives to them an aspect of weight and general ponderous- 
ness. In addition to him there was a Giovanni, a Girolamo, and 
another Luca, who all established themselves at Rome. They were 
the authors of the numerous specimens of so-called art which help to 
stock collections, and appear under the name-of the great Luca, with- 
out having the slightest claim to artistic interest. ‘Taken altogether, 
they are entirely without ornamental merit. | 

Girolamo came to France in 1528, and began the construction of 
the Chateau de Madrid for Francis I, which he was forced, by the 
jealousy of Philibert de Orme, to abandon. He then returned to 
Italy, and only revisited France when called upon by the Primatice 
to complete, under his direction, the enamelled ornamentation of 
the castle. This curious example of an art so exactly suited 
to the French climate was preserved uninjured until within a few 
years of our time, for in 1792, although in a neglected and dirty 
state, the Chateau de Madrid was still standing. At this period 
the terra cottas were destroyed; and pounded in a mortar to make 
cement ! , 

One French artist of the present day has endeavoured to take 
up the work and designs of the Della Robbia, and that is M. Joseph 
Devers, a Piedmontese; when still very young, he came to Paris and 
studied painting with Ary Scheffer, sculpture with Rude, and the 
art of enamelled decoration with M. Jollivet. It is to his courageous 
perseverance that we owe the modern movement of the public mind — 
in favour of enamelled faience decoration. Others have surpassed 
him in the perfection of the art, and made their fortunes, but it was 
he who heated the furnace. At the Academy of Arts, in 1853, he 


EHNAMELLED FAIENCE. 51 


exhibited a vast composition called “The Guardian Angels.” Since 
then, besides many minor works which he executed for private 
dwellings in France and Italy, and in England, he executed four 
alti relievi for the Church of St. Eustace, and a bust of Della Robbia 
for the Kensington Museum. The labours of M. Devers entitle him 
to our warmest congratulation. 

The vogue of enamelled faience shared the fate of the Della Robbia 
family. But during this period, the art of Italian Majolica had 
blossomed out of the attempt to imitate Hispano-Moorish pottery, the 
aspect of which it had greatly modified and softened. This was at a 
time when Italian society, full of enthusiasm for antique art, was 
seeking inspiration from its spirit ; rich, pompous, courteous, capricious, 
and gifted with taste as keen, though it was not so pure, as that of 
the Greeks, society in Italy was vividly awake to the charm of those 
elegant ewers, and basins, and the vases of all kinds which replaced, 
without imitating it too closely, the goldsmiths’ work of feudal times. 
It became customary for lovers to have the names of their mistresses 
inscribed in the inside of their cups and bowls, together with some 
laudatory epithet. Convents ordered whole sets of pharmacy pots and 
bottles to be ornamented with the figure of their patron saint, or the 
arms of their founder and protector. Sideboards were weighted down 
with gourds and ewers, whose handles were formed of leaning sirens, 
or of twisted and knotted serpents. Representations of the Siege of 
Troy were executed in the plates, and the Metamorphoses of Ovid in 
the dishes of dinner services. The old masters, and Raphael himself, 
did not disdain to make designs, or to colour cartoons for Ceramic 
workmen to execute in their art. ‘The invention, or rather the vul- 
garisation, of engraving brought all the works of Marc Antonio, 
after Raphael, into the potter’s studio. Everything contributed to 
the triumph of Majolica; the moderate price of the material, the 
adroitness of the artists, the close relations with France, where Italian 
was fast stifling national Renaissance. By what still remains we may 
judge of what must have been done in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries, and the amount of it which was thrown away, broken, worn 
out and disposed of as rubbish, passes all belief or imagination. Feasts 
were given which ended very much like the sacking of a town. The 
chronicler, Pierre de |’Estoile, relates that in 1580, after a dinner given 
by Cardinal de Birague to Henry III, “ there were two large tables 

E 2 


5 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


52 


covered with 1100 or 1200 pieces of faience, full of dried fruits, 
sugar-plums, and confects of all kinds, built up into castles, pyramids, 
platforms, and other magnificent fashions, most of which were thrown 
down and broken in pieces by the pages and servants of the Court, 
who were of a wanton and insolent nature. And great was the loss, 
for all the service was excellently beautiful.” 


GROTESQUELY ORNAMENTED EWER. 
(From the Urbino manufactory. Now in the collection of Baron James de Rothschild.) 


The upper provinces of Italy, and especially that part which was 
formerly Etruria, were, by a singular combination of transmitted 
privileges, the most active centres of reproduction. The more docu- 
ments are searched, the longer becomes the list of the places where 
manufactories existed. This is the present classification of it: 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 53 


Manufactories of the Marches: Faenza, Forli and Rimini; of 
Tuscany: Caffagiolo, Siena and Pisa; of the Duchy of Urbino: 
Pesaro, Castel Durante, Urbino, Gubbio and Gualdo; of the Pon- 
tifical States: Deruta; of the Northern Duchies: Ferrara ; of Venetia : 
Venice, Padua, Bassano; of the State of Genoa: Savona; of the 
Kingdom of Naples: Castelli. 

Whoever is in the habit of frequenting large collections must, besides 
being well acquainted with the names of the villages and towns in 
which they were made, have the marks and signatures of their respec- 
tive artists or makers at their fingers’ end. One must, as it were, take 
one’s degree in the study of pottery. If it were not restricted to 
the study of a peculiar varnish, and of the identity of the marks 
on the reverse, it would after all, be as interesting a science as many 
others ; but, unfortunately, the more one goes on with it, the more 
details multiply and stunt the growth of natural taste. Even the 
museums have committed this error, and in their glass cabinets they 
give too large a share to learning. In a museum devoting itself to 
the*study of industrial art, such as the Kensington Museum, this 
would be excusable; but ought not the Louvre, exclusively, to offer 
to the public gaze specimens which are recognised to be of peculiar 
beauty ? Works of purely decorative art should be displayed, as in the 
museum of the Hotel Cluny, spread about in appropriate nooks and 
suitable corners; on tables, cupboards, or shelves; or, again, between 
the windows. To lay them on tables, all equally high, and each at 
the same distance from the other as the last, like mineralogical speci- 
mens, is to deprive them of the object for which they were made and 
intended —to lift them out of their own sphere, and cause them to 
be looked upon by the million as they would look at the original 
manuscript of an old bible. 

The manufactory at Faenza is curious, insomuch that its name was 
given by the French to all the descriptions of terra cotta and enamelled 
faience that they met with. French genius rather excels in those 
despotic little caprices, and of affixing nick-names which are, to say the 
worst of them, not offensively impertinent, so that, after a shght feeling 
of indignation, the whole world finishes by adopting them. The pro- 
duce of Faenza is of a peculiarly archaic style; the pieces are mostly 
decorated with grotesque figures, which stand out in light shades upon 
a ground of blue or yellow, and which are drawn out with a minuteness 


54 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


of hand perfectly astonishing. Among other specimens, the Louvre — 
possesses a pretty little warming apparatus for the hands; it is in the 
shape and form of a book, with a clasp to it; hot water is introduced 
in the centre, so that, during church-time, for mstance, one could 
appear to be devoutly reading and holding one’s book, but two holes 
close to the binding-thread across the back (for the binding is exactly 
similar to a real one) were destined to receive a band, which suspended 
the hypocritical warmer across the shoulder, and supported it in its 
proper place and height. 

But before we mention, even summarily, the principal manufactories, 
since we have just given the origin of the word “ faience,” let us look 
over the book of a potter of Castel Durante, which will, for an instant, 
take us through the midst of those workshops, where it was kneaded, 
ornamented, baked, and sometimes even sold ; this book which Monsieur 
Claudius Popelin, a painter and enameller of real merit, has translated 
in imitation of the old style of language, is the “ Art du Potier,” by 
Cyprian Piccolpasso. He wrote it in 1548, ten years after the acces- 
sion of Guidobaldo IT., Feltro della Rovere. This lord of Pesaro and 
of Sinigaglia, of Montefeltro, and of Castel Durante, Count and Prefect 
of Rome, fourth Duke of Urbino, protected, with his greatest favour, 
the art of Majolica decoration which Alphonso d’Este had held to be 
of such great importance that he exclusively directed his attention to 
the discovery of beautiful and refined secrets in the art, and finished 
by composing the famous white colour of the Dukes of Ferrara; he 
collected all he could find of Raphael’s original drawings and any 
engravings of his works, excited the imagination of the men of science, 
whom he employed to compose ingenious sentences and mottoes, and 
appropriated the services of Battista Franco, whose sketches were so 
successfully. copied by Ceramic art. The famous collection of 
pharmacy vases of Loreto, one of the most complete of that set of 
curiosities in decorative art which has been left to us by the Renais- 
sance, was made in his manufactories. 

Piccolpasso’s book is divided into three parts: it tells us how the 
deposits of earth, which are collected in summer in the beds of the 
torrents descending from the Apennines, was picked up and lumped 
in a heap, washed by the rains, cleaned, kneaded, and preserved in 
large lumps of a given shape and size. The older the earth, the 
better it was. ‘These lumps were fashioned by a process of turning, 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE., 55 


such as we have represented it on page 46, where one is being 
worked by the hand and another by the feet. The fluted cups, 
and the vases with irregular profiles, were cast in plaster moulds 
in two pieces, which were afterwards jomed and stuck together by 
means of a species of liquid clay, called in French barbotine. 
After the pieces have been first dried in the air, they receive their 
first baking, and become what is termed biscuit; they take the 
enamel when plunged in a tub full of it im a_ liquid state, 


WORKSHOP OF PICCOLPASSO. 
(A Durantine potter of the sixteenth century.) 


which, when dry, greatly resembles a sort of coarse flour. It is 
on this enamel, in its raw state, that the Ceramic artist applies 
his colours, in a liquid state, by means of a long and supple brush ; 
the effect is produced by the first touch, for it hardly admits of a 
second. 

Enamel in those days was composed of Flanders tin. In the print 
here reproduced from those which accompany the French translation 


56 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


of his treatise, and which, unfortunately, therefore is only known to 
us through a medium, Piccolpasso shows us the very attitudes of the 
decorators, together with the models they used; also a list of the 
prices of various plates and dishes, when sold by the dozen. The 
painted pieces were plunged into the surface material, then called 
marzacotto, enclosed in proper cases and taken to the furnace. In 
these cases—which were cylindrical and made of earth, pierced 
throughout with lateral holes—the pieces were placed in such a 
manner that the paintings should be downward, to prevent the pos- 
sibility of cinders or dust clinging to them; as each case was able to 


EWR, ARMORIALLY DECORATED, 
(Ferrara ware. In the collection of Baron A. de Rothschild.) 


contain several plates or dishes, they were kept apart from one another 
by means of little earthen cones, called tassettes, the marks of which 
are clearly visible when the baking is completed. The metallic lustres 
and polish were only applied at the third baking; perhaps they were 
processes jealously kept secret by the workmen who had discovered 
them, and who transmitted them only upon certain conditions. 
Piccolpasso also acquaints us with the nomenclature, or terms 
employed to designate certain styles of decoration, as well as the price 
which they were able to fetch ; “ trophies” were composed of attributes 
of war or instruments of music; they were chiefly made at Urbino: 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 57 


“arabesques,” generally wrought on a white ground, came from Venice 
or Genoa: “chesnaies” were wreaths of oak-leaves and acorns, “ in 
use among us, through the respect and veneration we owe to Della 
Rovere, under whose shadow we live happily.” “Grotesques” were 
intervolutions of grimacing figures, which were then nearly out of 
fashion ; “flowers, fruits, and leaves,” and “leaves by the dozen ;”’ 
a quick and cheap style of ornamentation covering the whole surface 


: rT eT TT TD 


SHON 


VASE WITH GROTESQUES AND ARABESQUES. 
(Ferrara work.) 


of the dish; “landscapes,” of Venice, Genoa, and Castel Durante, 
which cost six francs a hundred ; “ porcelains” and “ traits,” a light 
delicate decoration, which resemble the nielli and ornamentation 
of the margins of a Persian manuscript. “White upon: white,” 
that looks like a veil of Maltese lace, through which you can see the 
colour of the piece ; “ quarters,” which divided the whole pattern into 
equal portions ; “ groups with or without background ;” and, finally, the 
“candelabra,” a grotesque form of decoration, when done on plaques 


58 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


were capable of beimg suspended to walls behind lights, to act as 
reflectors, in the same manner as the Venetian engraved glass was 
used at a later date. 

We have just been initiated by a potter into the secrets of his art ; 
let us now hear what an antiquarian has to say on the subject. 
Giambattista Passeri, of Pesaro, wrote in the latter part of the 
eighteenth century. He had already collected a number of notes that 
he had made on Etruscan vases and designs, when in visiting the 
collections of amateurs, and in looking round upon the quantity of 
Majolica he had, by degrees, surrounded himself with, he was in- 
spired with enthusiasm for the branch of industrial art specially 
distinguishing his province. In a fervour of patriotic sentiment he 
undertook to write a history of it, but he may have been slightly 
unjust to the other centres of Ceramic produce; nevertheless, it is he 
who, by his writings, lighted the fire which was to guide modern 
writers in their researches. He himself made use of Piccolpasso’s 
work, but his work is that of a man of the world, willing to divert the 
mind from what may be called a dryness of his subject, by taking 
ingenious little excursions. 

Giambattista Passeri goes back to the first years ee the fifteenth 
century, when he supposes the art of Majolica at Pesaro to have been 
in its bloom, and considers that it must there have been brought to 
perfection fifty years later, when under the dominion of the Sforzas. 
At that time the “ investriatura,” as he terms it, or mezza-majolica, was 
made there. In the sixteenth century, the invention of fine majolica 
reached its greatest success. 

He afterwards speaks of a process that offetted marvels ; it was no 
other than tesselated pavement, a thing utterly distin from the 
inlaid chequers, of which we have spoken above, as connected with 
the French middle ages. 

The flooring of Siena Cathedral is one of the most celebrated 
examples. It is composed of a series of squares forming a whole, and 
painted bit by bit, thus forming one vast design, complicated though 
it was. These squares by scientific juxtaposition formed the illustra- 
tion of a single subject. The process has been revived in our day 
with the same success. In the yard of the “Ecole des Beaux Arts,” 
at Paris, our readers may see fastened to the wall a large sheet of 
Majolica made in a number of square pieces, which are joined so as to 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 59 


form one large piece ; it was painted and baked by one of the brothers 
Balze, to whom we owe some extremely fine copies of Raphael’s 
frescoes. Whatever may be the merit of this reproduction, it would . 
have been far more reasonable to have paved a chapel or study with 
it, than to affix it to the wall of a courtyard. 

After stating the merits of the artists of whom the Dukes ene 
baldi had istiented themselves protectors, such as Battista Franco, or 
those whose works they had caused to be reproduced, such as Timoteo- 
Delle-Vite, Raphael and his pupils, Passeri goes on to enumerate the 
subjects chosen from history or the Bible, or from Greek or Latin 
poetry. “Thence,” he adds, “I infer two things; first, that the 
work was presided over by wise and learned men; and secondly, that 
these paintings were not only made for beauty’s sake, but also with 
the object of teaching the public mind those things which an edu- 
cated person neither can nor ought to ignore, and which can raise the 
tone of morality in general by the example of virtuous actions.” 

Later on he indicates the destination of all the beautiful faience 
which we so carefully place within our glazed cabinets, and the reason 
why it was so highly decorated: ‘Formerly in our country it was 
customary to make presents of vessels, and particularly of dishes 
or plates, with some complimentary motto inscribed upon them ; and 
those dishes or plates were painted in a manner appropriate to the 
occasion on which they were presented, or the reason for which they 
were given. ‘There was, more especially, a species of small dish, 
which might be called “amatori” (love-gifts), on which a lover 
caused a portrait of his mistress to be painted from nature, and which 
he afterwards sent to her, full of confects, such as dried fruits, sweet 
meats, and the like. This gift was highly esteemed, and looked upon 
as a pledge of constancy.” 

Fragile gift of a fickle nature! for, after mentioning some of these 
little hollow plates, showing the likeness and bearing the name of the 
lady flatteringly inscribed thus: “ Camilla bella! ... Lucia diva! .. .” 
Passeri adds: “On another we read the name of Philomele, through 
which, acting from indifference or pique, the young lady seems to 
have pierced a hole, and converted it into a mouse-trap.” 

Sometimes, during ceremonies or at balls, young ladies were helped 
to sweetmeats on little round dishes, at the bottom of which was 
painted a figure of Cupid dancing and playing on cymbals. Muni- 


60 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


cipalities ordered whole services of pottery to be made and marked 
with their crest and armorial bearings. For weddings, potters were 
ordered to select from the fables or from the thousand metamorphoses 
of Jupiter, an appropriate incident to reproduce. On the occasion of a 
birth a large vase was specially modelled and beautifully ornamented, 
to be handed to the mother as she lay in bed. “ It was so contrived 


== Ey SSSs — 
aie —— 
=> = SS 


—— San 


\ SS 
= = SN 
SS 


—Se—=—= 
— ———s - 


Sy SSS 
- = ——Ss—s—— < SS ~~ 
= = SS SX 
=> = Yr WIA 
S : 


= 


ENGAGEMENT PLATE. 
(Pesaro ware.) 


as to detach itself into seven or eight pieces of various dimensions and 
for various uses; one was a soup-tureen, another a little egg-stand, 
and soon. ‘Then, when they had performed their services, they were 

replaced, and again took the form of one large vase.” These pieces, 
which are painted inside and out with peculiar care, represented the 


EHENAMELLED FAIENCE, 61 


birth of gods or of heroes, or else they made special allusion to these 
events. On utensils for the bath, figures of water-nymphs, or the 
triumph of some maritime divinity, were generally painted. “The 
most eminent Cardinal Linti sent as a present to the most eminent 
Cardinal Corsini a water-shell, in which was represented, in a sym- 
bolical manner, the arrival of Madame Vittoria, wife of Duke Guid’ 


VASE TO ORNAMENT A DRESSOIR, 
(Urbino ware. In Mons. Dutuit’s collection.) 


Ubaldo to Pesaro, in the form of a marine goddess, accompanied by 
nymphs and tritons, than which was never anything better conceived, 
or more ably executed.” 

The history of the most important Italian Ceramic centres has of 


62 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


late made rapid strides. Many suppositions and mere conjectures 
have been confirmed by original documents. 
A clear and legible mark on the reverse side of certain pieces have 
enabled a whole series to be identified as belonging positively to one 
and the same set, which had hitherto only been suspected 
of relationship from a similarity of aspect, design, tone 
and colouring. Certain manufactories, hitherto almost 
unknown, have risen so suddenly in popular estimation 
that the taste may be said to fluctuate on a principle com- 
parable to that of Caffagiolo, whose characteristic mark is 
composed of a P and §, and another letter placed across them, and 
that not always the same letter. 


A DISH OF CAFFAGIOLO WARE. 
(Baron A. de Rothschild’s collection.) 


Pesaro and Castel Durante made use of yellow or ruby red on 
their majolicas ; but it is at Urbino that they were made to shine and 
glitter with the greatest taste and scientific knowledge. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 63 


~ In 1535, the “ Connétable de Montmorency” ordered a service there, 
decorated with his armorial bearings, six plates 

of which set have been preserved. One of the Fre), 

most celebrated artistic manufacturers Urbino KS 
ever possessed was named Francesco Xanto 

Ayvelli da Rovigo. He sometimes signed with an alpha A, and an 
omega Q, crossed by a bar with a sigma %, and an upsilon T.* 
. He has almost invariably copied Raphael’s compositions, modifying 
them sometimes by the addition of figures drawn from other sources. 
He applies his colouring in large plain surfaces; the tints of his skin 
and flesh are rendered cold by a brownish hue. The general tone of 
his painting, which is light, is relieved by bold touches of a deep and 
soft black like velvet; the distinguishing characteristic of it is the 
brilliant green of his foliage and drapery. His was an accomplished 
mind, and it is not uncommon to find, on the reverse side of his dishes, 
long quotations from Ovid, Virgil, Ariosto, or else allusions to events of 
the period, the siege of Rome by Cardinal de Bourbon, or the defeat 
of Francis I. at Pavia. 

The richest, noblest, and best conceived of all the specimens of 
majolica that we have yet seen, was transferred from the collection 
of a much-regretted amateur, M. Rattier, to that of the Marquis 
of Saint-Seine. The Louvre only possesses a copy of it, inferior to 
it both in tone and in boldness of conception, which fact goes to 
prove that the master, Fr. Xanto da Rovigo, handed to his work- 
men a model which they did their best to reproduce. The subject is 
“ Florence overwhelmed with grief at the death of her children.” The 
principal figure is kneeling, with her hair in disorder, her bosom 
uncovered, and a drapery only on her legs, and gazing at the body 
of her loved one stricken by the plague; the figure is borrowed from 
“The Massacre of the Innocents,” of Baccio Bandinelli, which was 
engraved by Marco Dente. Over her head two genti are flying, one 
bearing a sword and the other brandishing two torches. This magni- 
ficent bowl may be placed as one of the noblest creations of decorative 
art. 

Xanto ceased to work after 1540. Orazio Fontana appears to have 


* His usual mark was an X for Xanto, occasionally he gave his name more fully, 
taking one or more of the initials Fra Xanto Avelli da Rovigo, which were placed on 
the backs of his pieces. The above characters occur on the front of a plate, but bear 
no allusion to his name.—Ep. 


64 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


succeeded him; but his is no longer the same vigour of pencil, or the 
same science of colouring. One of his master-pieces is at the Louvre ; 
it represents an antique feast in a public place. It is not so much the 
detail of the scene, as the dignified character of the whole, which is so 
admirable in the Urbino ware of the best period. These majolicas are 
equal to Oriental art in richness and harmony of colour ; they rival a 


GOURD IN URBINO WARE, 
(in Mons. Jarvez’s collection.) 


Persian manuscript or an Indian shawl, or, again, a Japanese dish, or 
at least the softest and more delicate of them do. 

One of the most striking characteristics of some of these productions 
is the pencillmg in red which, when viewed from an incidental 
angle, shines with even more intensity than the most brilliant enamel. 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE. 65 


Tt is Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, sculptor and potter of the factory of 
Gubbio, whose signature is found on the reverse side of the dishes 
which shine with the finest lustre and polish, and, as the centre sub- 
jects of many differ in style, it has been supposed (rather contrary, 
however, to the customs of the age), that the process being a secret, 
Maestro Giorgio went from one workshop on to another. He was the 
son of Pietro Andreoli, a gentleman of Pavia. In 1498 he obtained at 
Gubbio (a county in the Duchy of Urbino, situated on the eastern slope 
of the Apennines) the right of citizenship, and became a person of im- 
portance. He was both architect and sculptor, and erected decorative 
altars in several of the churches of his adopted town, but not one of 
them has been preserved to this day. His monograms, or at least those 
which are attributed to him, are too numerous and not sufficiently 


FLAGON IN THE SHAPE OF A RHYTON, BY MAESTRO GIORGIO ANDREOLI. 
(in Baron G, de Rothschild’s collection). 
clear for us here to put them before our readers with any degree of 
certainty, especially as this is no critical work. The best mark for the 
recognition of a master’s work is faultless execution, and such is that 
of Maestro Giorgio Andreoli. The flagon in the shape of an antique 
rhyton, of which the above plate is an exact copy, is ornamented 
in relief, which tends to heighten its already patrician air. One 
document proves that Maestro Giorgio was still alive in 1552, and 
the addition of initial letters to his monogram indicate that in the 
year 1587 he had taken his three sons into partnership. 
F 


66 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


It is supposed that the factory of Deruta was founded by Antonio di 
Duccio, a pupil of Luca della Robbia. It has produced pieces of 
majolica which are chiefly recognisable by a light yellow lustre, and 
by vases in the shape of fir-cones, an allusion to which Bacchus must 
have shown himself particularly pleased. It is here that the teaching 
of Hispano-Moorish earthenware, which is so rich and yet so simple, 
was best understood. The early figures of saints and warriors which 
were painted there have not been surpassed in boldness and strength 
by any of the other manufactories. Mantegna himself furnished 
designs for it. 

Ferrara was celebrated, as early as the fifteenth century, for the 
peculiar beauty of the white it produced, which was experimented on 

by Alfonzo J., then Duke of Este, in a small furnace 
which he had caused to be built under the very windows 
of his palace. At Venice was made that dark-blue 
pottery, veined or marbled with white or yellow, which 
the Nevers potters not only imitated but succeeded in 
exactly reproducing. The pieces were generally made 
in moulds. In the middle of the eighteenth century the 
Venetian mark consisted of an A and an F united and surmounted by 
two palms, or else one of these two letters united to a three-pronged 
anchor. 

After having flourished with undiminished glory for the space of 
one century and a half in Italy, Majolica gradually became ex- 
tinguished and nearly disappeared, from the point of view at least 
which particularly interests us; that is to say, if the furnaces were 
kept alight. at all, nothing was put into them except pieces of an 
extravagant shape and outline, bulging and distorted, like those of 
Genoa or Savona, whose figures were without grace and their land- 
scapes without beauty. Oriental porcelain had entered into great 
competition with them. . Passerl, whom we have mentioned because 
he exactly illustrates the semi-critical tone of mind of a clever man 
at any given period, bears witness to the new preoccupations of 
amateurs at that time. _ , 

If the introduction of Oriental porcelain was a great fact in in- 
dustrial economy, it was found on the other hand to exercise an evil 
influence upon the art of decoration. In their endeayour to reproduce 
the material, people contented themselves with the production of small 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 67 


pieces, so that the sentiment for decoration on a large scale suffered 
at once, and was to a certain extent laid aside. In comparing the 
actual character of the two materials, we are struck at once with 
the difference between them; that of porcelain is hard, glassy, cold 
to the touch; and refusing to absorb colour, it is anti-pathetic, un- 
inviting ; Faience, on the contrary, seems to open its arms to colour- 
ing. One is as much open to decoration as the other is little so; 
we speak, at any rate, of the European porcelain, for with regard to 
that of the Persians, Japanese and Chinese, we shall see hereafter 
how much frankness and geniality they expressed simply in what at 
first sight appeared to be only plain surfaces of red, of blue, and of 
green. 

At the present day Italian majolica has been revived with success — 
but without originality—by Minton, in England, but especially in the 
factories of the Marquis Ginori, at Doccia, near Florence. Some of 
these productions are signed Ginori, or merely marked with a G en- 
circling an I’; others have no mark at all, and they have barely issued 
from the pouer s hands before they are carried off by brokers, or, 
more properly speaking, by “swindlers.” The first thing they do is to 
put them in a dungheap to rot; then they expose fhe to a hot sun, 
or else they boil them in greasy, dirty water, to give them the smell of 
antiquity ; they scrape the enamel with emery paper in order to rub 
the betraying varnish off, and make ingenious cracks and chips in 
them. These freebooters sometimes purposely break the piece and 
put it clumsily together again. It is seldom that with one or other of 
their frauds, of which we have mentioned only the commonest, they 
fail to deceive a credulous amateur, a novice in this branch of art. A 
spurious imitation, however, can hardly resist the double analogies of 
good taste and experience, or the expert criticism of real connoisseurs, 
or of learned amateurs; a close comparison between it and an original 
suffices to show where the factitious piece of antiquity is halt and 
deformed. 

On the other hand the simplicity of these forgers of the antique, 
who will take no warning, and who rush into the contest without 
ammunition and without weapons, is easily exposed. No tribunal 
exists for the punishment of these frauds, and indeed what judge could 
decorously keep his countenance when a victim’s sole complaint to him 
is that he has purchased a genuine Luca della Robbia for only thirty 

F 2 


68 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


francs . . . a vulgar modern moulding which would dishonour even 
the memory of the great master? Such dupes have done the greatest 
mischief to contemporaneous decorative art; such amateurs affect 
enthusiasm for things of which they neither appreciate the grace nor 
understand the real merit. 

The art of Majolica—to put the matter on a broader basis, we wil 
call it the art of enamelled and painted earthenware—can no longer 
content itself with the mere reproduction of pieces, even of the finest 
specimens of Italian art. We might as well ask our poets to write 
nothing but tragedies. Our sideboards, carved out in kinds of wood 
which were then unknown, with different outlines, and made to supply 
new wants, cannot be burdened with spurious imitations which are 
dimmed and extinguished the moment an original, even of the same 
period, is admitted among them. | 

It must transform itself as all other arts have done. For our part, 
with the exception of a small number of pieces which have their place 
in the national collections of the Louvre, Cluny, Sevres, and South 
Kensington, and in one or two amateur collections, we scarcely know 
any pottery which in interest surpasses the plates or decorated dishes 
in the workshops of the brothers Deck, by Messrs. Bracquemond, 
Ranvier, Hamon, Gluck, Ehrmann, &c. One day Monsieur Francais, 
the landscape painter, amused himself by painting, on the wide margin 
of a dish, a thick wreath of ivy, m the centre of which was an owl which 
looks at you with distended eyes. Can one suppose this dish, unique 
as a picture sketched by an artist’s hand, to be of less value than a 
potsherd executed without vigour, which happens to have an unknown 
mark on the reverse side of it ? 

The claim we here put in is the more logical, that French 
genius, which knows so little how to yield to strange influences, 
was from beginning to end the inventor of enamelled earthenware, 
and stamped on it a surprising mark of originality. If Italy has 
her Luca della Robbia, France has her Bernard Palissy, whose 
genius, so purely Gallic, we will proceed to study from his works, and 
briefly glance at his perseverance and Sune by quoting his own 
words. 

_ The birth-place of Bernard Palissy is still a contestable point, Shall 
we suppose it to have been‘in Périgord, or in the Agenois. A native 
of Poitou who is learned in such researches, Mons. Benjamin Fillon, 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 69 


is of opinion that he came from Saintonge, his dialect being pre- 
cisely that of the borders of the Charente. He says: “The popular 
expressions of that territory are too deeply engrafted in his composi- 
tion not to have entered it with the blood of his fathers.” Buffon has 
said: “ The style tells the man ;” in this instance it should be, the 
style tells the birth-place. 

What was the date of Palissy’s birth? If we may believe Pierre 
l’Estoile, who for many years was his intimate associate, it was 1510. 
But we are still without any document which can positively confirm 
this fact. 

To what social class did he belong ? No doubt to the lower middle 
class; for in a registered document dated 1558, he is denominated : 
cs That honourable man, Master Bernard Palissy, painter, living in the 
town of Saintes.” 

In the oldest documents we have which may be trusted on the 
subject, we find him mentioned as returning from a tour in the south 
of France or in Germany, after the manner of our itinerants, uniting 
in Saintonge the trade of painter on glass with the profession of 
surveyor; married, the father of a family, but miserably poor. He 
was then close upon thirty years of age. He was a Protestant, and a 
friend of the Seigneur Antoine of Pons, who had just returned from 
Ferrara, where he had married Ann of Parthenay. He chanced to 
see one of those cups enamelled with the milky and brilliant white of 
which we have already spoken, the secret of which it was supposed 
the Dukes of Ferrara possessed. This was the commencement of his 
anxieties, his struggles and his misery; but it was also the first step 
he made in the direction of renown. 

We will quote Bernard’s own words; but it is fair to state before- 
hand from which of his works we quote. They have a tone of 
feverishness and sourness always distinguished by a discreet sincerity, 
though sometimes satirical. 

In 1562, Bernard Patiaay published a work at La Rochelle; the 
following is the title: “The True Recipe by which all men in France 
may learn to multiply and increase their treasures. Item, those who 
know nothing of letters may here learn a philosophy necessary to all 
inhabitants of the earth. Item, in this book is contained the design 
for as useful and enjoyable a garden as can be seen or desired. Item, 
the map and plan of a fortified town, more difficult to besiege than any 


70 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


that has ever been heard of—the work of Master Bernard Palissy, 
worker in clay, and inventor of rustic figures (figulines rustiques) to the 
King, and to my lord the Duke de Montmorency, peer and constable 
of France, living in the town of Xaintes.” This title suffices to show 
us how excitable, active, and ingenious was the mind of Bernard. We 
have every reason to think that this “ Recipe” was, if not written, at 
least sorted and put in order during the time he spent in prison. A 
high Calvinist and an eloquent orator, he had created in Saintes a 
church in which he was himself the preacher of the new faith. The 
edict of 1559, which punished the crime of heresy with death, did not 


THE MARK OF PALISSY’S BOOK. 
(The “ True Recipe.’”’) 


shake his faith. In 1562, Parliament ordered the edict to be put in 
execution with regard to his sect; Palissy then undertook the defence 
of his companions in faith; but in vain. Notwithstanding the pro- 
tection of the Count de la Rochefoucauld, general of the royal army, 
who had given the franchise to his workshop, Palissy was arrested im the 
night by the police, and taken off to the prisons of Bordeaux. He 
must inevitably have been put to death but for the timely interven- 
tion of the Constable de Montmorency, for whom he had executed 
some important works a few ‘years previously. He was rescued, even 
when before his judges, by the patent bestowed on him by Catherine 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE, 71 


de Medicis, of “inventor of rustic figures to the King,” which in 
itself was sufficient to exempt him from the severe jurisdiction of 
Bordeaux. 

This “ Recipe” is a sort of apocalyptic work, a fanatical book in 
which we see allusions made to the fate of his friends and that of the 
reformed religion, difficult to understand, inasmuch as they are masked 
in the language of material works. It is written in the form of 
questions and answers: “Some time after that the emotions of civil 
wars had subsided, and when it had pleased God to send us His peace, 
I was one day walking along the meadows of this town of Xaintes, 
near the river Charente; and thus as I contemplated the horrible 
dangers from whence God had delivered me in the time of past tumults 
and troubles, I heard the voice of certain maidens who were sitting 
under some shrubs, and who were singing the 104th Psalm. Owing 
to the softness and harmony of their voices I forgot the thoughts 
which had occupied my mind at the outset... . . ” And then he 
goes on to imagine a figure to his mind’s eye as in a great picture, the 
beautiful landscapes suggested to us by the Prophet in this psalm, or 
else to make a garden or build a house or palace or amphitheatre for 
the reception of the Christians who were exiled in times of perse- 
cution. 

It is in the title-page of this volume that the mark of the “ True 
Recipe” is printed, and with the following motto: “ Poverty impedes 
good souls in their progress towards success.” Other publishers and 
printers had already adopted it; but it so well accords with the history 
of Palissy’s life, his actions and his thoughts, that we cannot but think 
that it was intentionally selected by him. It was a drawn epigram, 
an apologue for weak minds as well as for poor bodies; it is to the 
poor much more than to the rich and powerful that the whole book is 
addressed. Agriculture, the fattening of land, the chemical composi- 
tion of different kinds of clay or earth, the management and economy 
of forests, the formation of stones, the salutary influence of salts, and 
a hundred other curious topics are introduced in a dialogue which is 
at once sensible and satirical, with an abundance of detail that makes 
it intelligible to all. There is more than one popular error admitted 
without question, and more than one old woman’s tale repeated as 
true; but still, in many places, one is conscious of the hidden presence 
of the man of science, who, when he reveals himself in his second 


72 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


book, will deserve, more than did Cuvier, the title of “Father of 
Modern Geology.” 

Shortly afterwards Palissy started for Paris. The following pages 
are taken from the book he published in 1580, under this title: 
“ Admirable Discourses on the Nature of Water-courses, both Na- 
turally and Artificially produced: on metals, on salts and salines, 
stones, iron, and enamels. . Together with several other secrets 
referring to nature. Besides this, a tract on marl, containing useful 
and necessary knowledge to all those who meddle with agriculture. 
The whole compiled in the form of dialogues, in which are im- 
troduced theory and practice, by M. Bernard Palissy, inventor of 
rustic figures and ornaments to the King and to the Queen his 
mother.” This is the réswmé of the course of lectures which Palissy 
commenced giving during Lent in 1575, and which he continued until 
the year 1584; for, besides his anticipation of contemporaneous facts, 
he was unwittingly one of the chief promoters of religious conference. 
With consummate good sense, and indignant with those whom Rabelais 
called the “ distillers of quintessence,” he warns the reader to “ beware 
of the opinions of those who contend that Theory was the father of 
Practice,” and he invites him to pay a visit to his small academy. 

_ Eleven principal points are treated of in this book; namely, the — 
waters of springs, rivers, &c.; alchemy, potable gold, mithridate, 
glaciers, divers kinds of vegetables and mineral salts, common salt, 
all precious and common stones, divers kinds of clay, earthen art and 
‘its usefulness, fire and enamel, marl and its utility. It is a very 
curious kind of encyclopedia. In it Palissy shows himself to be more 
learned, more addicted to hypothesis, and more clear than in his first 
book. ‘The theory of mineral waters, of fountains, of fossils, ight, the 
attraction of substances are there suggested,—as it were outlined by 
the very hand of genius. Examination of the philosophy of this 
work, so characteristically French, yet so little known, would be far 
more interesting and more national, as well as more popular, than the 
programmes annually drawn up by our academies on eine: ‘aha 
and intricate points of archeology. 

The Art of working Earth, as we have already stated, is in the 
 .form of a long dialogue between Theory and - Practice: “ You pro- 
mised some time back that you would teach me the art of working 
earth?” asks Theory, “and when you made me that long speech on 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE, 73 


the subject of argillaceous earth,* I was much pleased, thinking that 
you would instruct me in all the branches of that art, but what 
was my dismay when I found that instead of continuing, you merely 
put me off till another day.” 

“Think you,” replies Practice, “ that a man of judgment is willing 
thus to divulge the secrets of an art which is of the greatest value to 
the one who has invented it? The secrets of my art are not as those 
of others. I know that an efficacious remedy for a plague or a disease 
should not be kept undivulged.... . But in mine, and in other arts, 
it is otherwise. ‘There are many pretty inventions which men hold in 
contempt, because they are common.” And then Palissy goes on, 
with warmth, to enumerate some of those professions which, from their 
close alliance with art as well as with industry, are peculiarly hindered 
—almost destroyed—by newer inventions, and the influence of strong 
competition ; for instance, the art of making and colouring glass, the art 
of enamelling, sculpture, and that of the more learned portrait painters. 

This passage has been much quoted by those who have wished to 
accuse Palissy of having a thin and narrow mind. Such persons have 
made no study of human nature; jealous of what it has acquired at 
the cost of strenuous labour, whether of a material or an intellectual 
sort. Do not parents manifest the greatest tenderness and affection 
for those amongst their children who have cost them the most care 
and trouble? Still less can the habits and customs of the time in 
which Palissy lived have been studied. Each corporation formed a 
dominion of its own, the frontiers of which were as carefully traced 
out as possible, which were only passed after a long and tedious 
apprenticeship. But this very brotherhood, and the admittance into 
companionship with it, did not admit of communicating its secrets 
without reserve ; these were the property of the master, who only left 
them to, or shared them with, his eldest son or his partners. Methods 
were written out as seldom as possible, for fear of thieves or of treach- 


* The treatise on “argillaceous earth” naturally precedes this one. It explains 
the nature and use of clay, and the process through which it goes when in the hands 
of potters and brickmakers. Palissy there recounts the misadventures of some image- 
carvers, who, instructed only by hearsay, “came and put their statues and busts, ill- 
dried and ill-prepared, into the furnace.” When the furnace began to wax hot, it was 
amusing (and how we all did laugh!) to hear these images cracking and making 
detonations, as of batteries, among themselves, like a number of gun-shots, or the 
repeated firing off of cannon. 


74 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


erous workmen ; they were whispered in the ear, or communicated by 
hand, and in private. This is why so few of them have been left 
to us, and although chemistry reveals the constituent elements of a 
given thing, and reason helps us to guess at the series of operations 
through which it passed before it acquired its actual form, there must 
still remain a great deal of manipulation and handling by an experi- 
mental process that distracts‘the modern practitioner with doubt and 
fruitless speculation. The power of theory confronts the strength of 
practice at every turn, because practice is a mere fact, and this theory, 
which is the work of mans’ brain, is relatively incomplete ; a number 
of inexplicable details and rapid combinations present themselves, 
beyond the reach of the chemist’s alembic and invisible to the micro- 
scope of the naturalist. | 
Palissy, therefore, as a workman of the sixteenth century, was right 
in being chary of revealing his methods; but as a man, we must 
remember that he was poor, isolated, and without instruction ; we shall 
find that he, in great measure, made himself what he was. In his 
capacity of citizen and artist then, he must peculiarly have suffered 
from the tremendous shock given to the society of that period by the 
innovation of modern views and ideas. A Protestant, and suffering 
persecution, he was more than others keenly alive to the trouble in 
which society was gradually becoming involved, of which it can only 
now see at a distance the end. He gravely says: “The secrets of 
agriculture, the risks and dangers of navigation, the word of God, 
those sciences which are in common use to all mankind, should not be 
kept sealed.” There are many noble exceptions which should incline 
us to be indulgent towards his irritable temper ; when he speaks of the 
“moulding process, which has been prejudicial in the highest degree 
to clever sculptors, who may have spent long and weary years in pro- 
ducing the face of some prince or princess ;” full of sympathy for him 
in the regret he expresses at having seen the history of Our Lady 
printed in large type, after the manner of a German named Albert, * 
which histories became so common, and of such little esteem, on 
account of the number of them, that one could be hough for a penny, 
notwithstanding the magnificent invention of paneag 


* Albert Durer, painter and engraver, born at Nuremberg in 4471. He was one of 
the greatest geniuses of German art; one who figures highest during the time of the 
Renaissance, and therefore one who was most worthy of being appreciated by Palissy. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE, 75 


But this narrowness of Palissy’s entails serious questions: “ You 
can easily see by them, and a hundred other examples, that it is better 
that one man, or a small community, should make their profit out of 
some art, in living honestly, than that so large a number of them 
should constantly hinder and damage one another to so great an 
extent that severally they will not be able to earn their bread, except 
by profaning art; leaving things half done, which is the case with 
every art for which the demand is very great.” Palissy here points 
out very forcibly the inconveniences and evils arising from what is 
called in these days competition. So long as it keeps within rational 
limits it is useful in social economy, because the older humanity grows, 
the more its material wants increase, and the more it seeks to satisfy 
these wants by augmenting the natural and manufactured produce of 
all kinds. But in speaking of art, and especially of that art which is 
superior to industrial labour, Palissy, if he sought only for absolute 
perfection, and for a public which would be worthy of comprehending 
it, was right; no half-finish, no flimsy likeness, should be suffered to 
creep in and be tolerated ; those “ half-completed works” are the dis- 
grace of industrial art in our day ; they corrupt public taste, giving it 
the habit of tolerating mediocrity, and being satisfied in sculpture 
with a shapeless block ; in painting, with a mere sketch; in archi- 
tecture, with stucco ornaments, false windows, columns supporting 
nothing; they immortalize that perpetual worship of tradition which 
causes things only to be esteemed whose merit is that they are old or rare. 
‘The weakness of these half-completed works is only, as the thinker of 
Saintes truly foresaw, “the result of the efforts of so many men who 
stand in each other’s way.” They produce quickly, and dazzle the 
public eye by their shallow fecundity, while men of genius are striving 
long and hard to complete and polish the ideal which in their solitude 
they haye set up for their model. 

Everything is set forth with earnest gravity in this prologue of the 
“earthern arts,’ or “art of working earth.” Just as he is about to 
commence his narrative, Palissy is reminded of his past troubles. 
Once again, and for the last time, he begs his interlocutor not to ask 
him any more questions. He expresses the whole law of human 
work in that admirable precept which ought to be inscribed on the 
walls of every school, of every factory, and of every workshop: “ First 
of all see that you are watchful, dexterous, active and hardworking.” 


76 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


And then, as one who is thoroughly cognizant of the stumbling blocks 
that lie across the path of the amateurs and inventors, he adds: 
“ Secondly, you must have the wherewithal.” 

The narrative commences: “I had not much money, but I had the 
power of painting. It was generally supposed in our neighbourhood 
that I was more learned in the art of painting than I really was, and 
that is why I was often called upon to make figures for lawsuits.* 
Now when I was given this work I was very well paid, so I continued 
for a long time my trade of a painter on glass (la vitrerze),f until I 
felt sure I could make my living by-exercisng my art of earthen- 
ware.” He was at that time weighed down with a wife and children. 

“ According unto your request, you must know that five-and-twenty 
years ago I was shown an earthen cup whose shape and enamel were 
so beautiful that it recalled to me the indignation I had felt at the 
sayings of those who ridiculed me at the time when I painted figures. 
Seeing, therefore, that these were no longer-sought or cared for in my 
own country, and that the making of ornamental glass was no longer 
in great request, I bethought me that if I were able to discover the 
process of enamel, I could make earthen enamels and other beautiful 
works, because that God had endowed me with a certain knowledge 
of painting; and from that moment, without reflecting that I had no 
knowledge of argillaceous clay, I began to work and seek for enamels, 
like a man trying to grope his way in the dark. Without knowing of 
what these enamels were composed, I broke in pieces and pounded 
every description of material which I thought might be made some- 
thing of. I bought a number of pots of earth or clay, which I also 
broke up, and in these pieces I laid my pounded stuff; then haying 
marked them and put them apart, each mixture by itself, I made a 
memorandum of what each contained: this done, I built up an oven 


* This expression of “ figures for law-suits” is supposed to mean, * plans and maps 
for surveying.” 

+ By the expression (la vitrerie) is meant the art of composing and painting cartoons 
for glass windows. As to the baking and arrangement of them, that is more obscure, 
for unless Palissy had written quite a little novel, how was he to explain the almost 
childish efforts he is going to tell us of, with regard to the baking process for his 
enamels. The construction of glass is analogous; the same series of bakings, more 
or less fierce, according to what was required by the colouring oxides or fluxes, is 
observed. Isit, then, to be supposed that he did not set foot in the very glass-factory 
for which he worked ? 


- With regard to Palissy’s paintings on glass, none have positively been authenticated. 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE, 77 


according to my fancy, and put these pieces each with its own con- 
tents into it to bake, to see if I could not in some way succeed in 
producing any white colour, for white enamel was all I sought for, 
for I had heard it said that white enamel was the foundation of all 
other. But because I had never seen the process by which earth is 
baked, I did not at all know the degree of heat at which enamel will 
melt, so it was impossible that I should succeed by this means even 
had my drugs been the right ones; for sometimes I allowed them to 
heat too much and at other times too little, so when my materials 
were under or over-baked, I could not rightly judge of the reason why 
I did not succeed, attributing all deficiencies in my materials. In so 
doing I was committing a yet greater error than the last, for in 
placing my pieces into the furnace, I used no discretion as to the 
arrangement of them. After taking-so much pains, and still finding 
my efforts fruitless, I continued day by day, and at the cost of great 
labour and expense, to make new furnaces and break up new mate- 
rials, all of which was very wasteful both of wood and of time. 

“ After working thus imprudently for some years, with many sighs 
and much sadness, because I could arrive at no satisfactory result, 
remembering that it was all so much labour and money thrown away, 
I resolved, in order to be more economical, to send my materials and 
drugs to be proved in a real potter's furnace, and by his process ; and 
with this intention I bought several earthen pots, which, having as 
usual broken in pieces, I successively filled with three or four bits of 
enamel, and sent them to a pottery about five miles distant from my 
house, with a request to the potter that he would oblige me by 
putting each piece into the furnace as it stood with its contents; and 
to this he willingly acceded. But when, having completed their part 
of the work, they came to take out my pieces, it ended again in loss 
and disappointment, because my scheme resulted in no success, owing 
to the fact that the potter’s oven had not been sufficiently heated for 
my purpose, and that the pieces were placed into it without sufficient 
scientific knowledge. Then, again, I tried new combinations of 
material, always with much outlay and expense, and nothing but loss 
of time, vexation and disappointment. 
“When I found that I could arrive at no satisfactory result with 
this my scheme, I gave the matter up for a little time, and devoted 
myself once more to my art of painting on glass, almost giving up 


78 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


the pursuit of enamels and their secret. Some days after this,* certain 
commissioners deputed by the King to levy the duty on salt in the pro- 
vince of Xaintonge, called upon me to make a map of the islands and 
salt marshes of the surrounding district. When I had completed this 
commission, and found myself possessed of a little money, I was again 
seized with a desire to resume the pursuit of enamels. I broke up 
about three dozen new pots, and having pounded a quantity of new 
material, this time I covered the raw side of the broken pieces 
with a layer of my preparation, which I administered with a brush. 
You must know that out of two or three hundred pieces only three 
contained the same ingredients. This done, I collected all my pieces 
together, and took them to a glass manufactory, to see whether that 
process would answer better. It happened that the heat of these 
being much greater than that of the potteries, having put my pieces 
on the fire one day and had them withdrawn the next, I found that 
some of my ingredients had partly melted, so this was an inducement 
to continue the search for white enamel at which I had so pereoy caoy 
worked. | 
“ With regard to the other colours I did not trouble my head about 
them; the mere approach to the result I looked for was sufficient to 
induce me to work on for another two years, in the which I did little 
else than walk to and from the workshops of the neighbouring glass- 
makers. Thus did God try to discourage me until one day when I 
had made up my mind not to persevere beyond this once, having with 
me a man laden with more than 300 sorts of pieces prepared for trial ; 
one of these, after being four hours in the furnace, turned out to have 


melted, and to be covered with a white and polished surface; at which 


my joy was so great that I thought I had become a new creature; I 
thought, too, that I had attained perfection in the making of white 
enamel, but this was far from being the case. In one way the result 
was good, but in another it was of little use! good, inasmuch as it 
was a beginning of better things, and comparatively useless, because — 
I could not secure the same success for a pee of larger or — 
proportion. 

“‘In those days I was so foolish, that having at last suspended in « 
obtaining a white enamel which was peculiarly rar I forthwith began 
to make earthen pots without knowing anything of pottery; and 

| * Towards the year 1548.. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE, 79 


having spent seven or eight months in the making of these, I set to 
work to build myself a furnace like those of the glass-blowers, which 
causel me indescribable labour and trouble, for I had to be my own 
bricklayer. I had to fetch and carry the water, and to make my own 
mortar. I had, too, to fetch and carry the bricks I required on my 
own shoulders, because I could not afford to pay a man to help me. 
I managed the first baking, but for the second no one will believe the 
trouble and vexation I underwent. For, instead of resting from my 
labours, they increased, and it took me more than a month, working 
night and day, to crush and pound sufficient of the material where- 
with I had made that beautiful bit of white enamel at the glass 
furnace. When I had accomplished the pounding of all the neces ary 
ingredients, I covered the pots with it, as I had done before. Then I 
introduced the fire into my furnace by two openings, as I had seen it 
done by the glass-workers. I spent six days and six nights before 
this furnace, incessantly feeding it with wood through these apertures, 
and that without any result at all, so that I was like one who 
despairs: I was as one bewildered, too, with ovér-fatigue. I then 
came to the conclusion that, according to my arrangement, I had’ put 
too little of the melting substance upon the other, of which there was 
too great a proportion, an1 seeing this, | recommenced breaking it all 
up again, albeit without allowing my furnace to get cold, for that 
would have given me double trouble, so I did nothing but break, 
pound, and heat the furnace. 

“When I had put my ingredients together, 1 was obliged again to 
buy pots wherein to prove them, having sacrificed those I had pre- 
viously made; and when I had covered the new ones with my compo- 
sition, I placed them in the oven, being careful to keep it at an equal 
degree of heat; but, in order to do this, I was much grieved to be 
obliged, in default of sufficient wood—for my supply was at an end— 
to take the supports of my garden paling for fuel, and when they 
were spent, I was constrained to use the very tables and planks that 
were in my house, in order to accomplish the second baking. I cannot 
express how greatly this extremity pained me; besides this, I was 
lean and dried-up, from the heat of the fire and the hard work. For 
more than a month I never gave my clothes time to dry upon me, and, 
in addition to this, people laughed me to scorn; even those who had 
it in their power to assist me went about saying that I was destroying 


80 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


and burning my house. By this means all credit was taken from me, 
and I passed for being a madman. | 

“Others said I was trying to coin false money, which imputation so 
afflicted me, that I felt, as it were, shrivelled where I stood, so that I 
went about the streets with bended head, like one ashamed. I had 
many debts, and generally two of my children out at nurse, and 
without the means of paying for their board and nursing. No one 
succoured me, but rather the reverse. JI was laughed at, and people 
mocked me, saying: ‘It serves him right that he should starve, 
because he neglects his trade.’ All this came to my ears when I 
walked in the street. However, I had still hope, which supported 
and encouraged me, inasmuch as my last experiments had to a certain 
extent succeeded: thence, I hoped to be able to make enough money 
to live upon. How greatly I was mistaken, you will hereafter 
learn.” ! 

In the collection of Sir Anthony de Rothschild, in London, there is 
a medallion which is supposed not only to be the work of Bernard 
Palissy, but also his portrait. This last supposition, however, is 
altogether gratuitous. Nothing goes to prove that it represents 
Bernard rather than any of the men of his day, either illustrious or 
obscure. On the contrary, there is the strongest presumptive evidence 
that the portrait we here produce is authentic. It is a water-colour 
on vellum, which was purchased last year by Mr. KE. du Sommerard, 
for the Museum of the Hotel Cluny. The execution of it evidently 
dates from the time in which Palissy lived. The name, written in 
gold letters above the head, indicates the fixed design of the artist 
to draw the attention of posterity to the effigy of an important per- 
son, of whom he took particular pains to produce an exact likeness. 
The dress is simple but sufficiently ornamented with gold trimmings 
for it to have belonged to one who possessed the official title of “in- 
ventor of rustic figures to the King, and to the Queen, his mother.” 
The face looks worn, and the expression is sad and meditative; the 
forehead is very high, and evidently that of an inventor and a man of 
genius; the general expression suggests great refinement of mind ; 
that of the mouth is sardonic; and, lastly (a detail that many would 
pass without observation, but which to us is of mysterious significa- 
tion), in the left eyebrow there is the scar of a large wound. Itis not our 
intention to become romantic, but who knows whether this cut was 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 81 


not the result of some splinter from that’ stone, which “ crackled like 
thunder, and was as sharp as a razor?” 

He continued: “After resting some time from my labours, la-- 
menting that none had compassion upon me, I said unto my soul: 
‘What is it makes you sad, since you have found what you sought ? 
Work now, and you will put your abusers to shame!’ But to this 
my mind replied: ‘You have nothing wherewith to pursue your 
object ; how will you feed your family, while you spend the two or 
three months which must elapse before you can enjoy the fruit of 
your labours?’ While I was in this distress and trouble of mind, 
hope gaye me a little courage, and, having considered how long a 
time it must evidently take me to make another furnace-full with my 
own unaided hand, in order to save time and bring my discovery to 
light all the sooner, I engaged a common potter, and I gave him 
certain portraits as an inducement to him to make me some pots to 
order, and while he was making these, I busied myself with making a 
few medals.* But it was a pitiable thing, for I was obliged to feed the 
said potter at a tavern on credit, for at home I had nothing to give 
him. 3 

“When we had worked for the space of six months, and it was 
time to bake the work that was done, I had to build my furnace and 
dismiss the potter, whom, for want of ready money, I was obliged to 
pay in clothes of my own. But I had no material wherewith to 
build my furnace, so I was compelled to pull down the one I had 
previously made after the manner of the glassmakers, so as to be able 
to use the same bricks for this one ; and, because the old furnace had 
been so greatly heated for six days and six nights, the mortar and 
bricks of it had become liquefied, and, being hardened again, were like 
glass; so sharp were the edges, that in handling them I cut and 
pierced my hands in so many places, that I had to eat my dinner with 
hands bound up in rags. When the old oven was demolished, I still 
had the new one to build, which I did not do without great trouble, 
especially as I had myself to fetch all the water, bricks and mortar, 
without assistance and without rest. 

“When this was done, I put what I had prepared to bake, and 

* By the word “ medals,” we must understand “ornamental medallions,” profiles of 
heroes, or of divinities, which Palissy modelled in clay to be afterwards enamelled. 
Some of these exist in many collections. They were intended to ornament certain 


grottos, of which we shall speak later on. 
G 


82 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


then, either through borrowing or otherwise, I contrived to obtain the 
materials necessary to produce enamel, the first trial having succeeded. 
But when I had bought the said materials, I had such a job as I had 
little anticipated; it nearly killed me. For, after tirmg myself out 
with several days’ work, so that I thought I could no longer continue 
to pound and crush my ingredients, I found myself compelled to 
break them up by means of a hand-mill, which I had to turn alone, 
whereas it was hard work for two strong men to-move it; so great 
was my desire to succeed in my enterprise that I accomplished things 
that I had before thought to be impossible. When the ingredients 
were well crushed and pounded, I covered my pots and medals with 
them, and when I had disposed and arranged them in the oven, 
I began to make up the fire, believing that I should afterwards 
withdraw three or four hundred francs’ worth from it; so I continued 
the fire at the same proportion of heat, until I should get some indi- 
cation of the enamels having melted, and my-collection in good condi- 
tion. The next day, when I came to take out my work, having first 
been careful to remove the fire, I was altogether put out of counte- 
nance by what I found ; for, however excellent my enamel may have 
been, two accidents had occurred which spoilt the whole. I will tell 
you what they were, that you may keep clear of them. The mortar 
which I had been compelled to use was full of flints, which, from the 
great heat of the furnace, had cracked and split into a thousand 
pieces, filling and covering my enamel when it was in a liquid state 
and capable of retaining the same, so I found what would otherwise 
have been a tolerable success disfigured by fragments of pebbles. 
“Being thus convinced that my furnace was properly heated, 
I allowed it to get cold until the next day, when, upon reflection, I 
scarcely knew which way to turn, for my experience had altogether 
cost me more than six and twenty gold crowns. I had borrowed the wood 
and the clay I had used, and had even taken on credit the food I had 
needed during my work, promising to repay it all with the profits I 
expected to make my work produce ; so that the very next day several 
of my creditors presented themselves, even before I had withdrawn the 
contents of my furnace, in the hope of immediate payment. This 
added yet more to my distress, insomuch as their presence renewed 
my shame and confusion ; for all my pieces were sprinkled with small 
bits of stone, which were so firmly stuck in and so sharp-edged that 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 83 


in passing the hand over them they cut you like razors. And what a 
loss it was to me no one can tell; for although some would buy my 
work at a very low price, I felt that it would be a disgrace to my art ~ 
to cast abroad these inferior productions—a disgrace to my honour ; 
so I broke my work in pieces in a state of great depression, and not 
without a cause, for I no longer had any means of supporting my 
family. At home I met with nothing but reproach and blame; in- 
stead of consolation I only received abuse. Having heard I had 
broken all that I had made, my neighbours said that I was mad, for 
that I could, at any rate, have made as much as eight francs out of 
what I had taken.” 

What an indomitable soul! Nothing dissuades him from pursuing 
his object ; neither misery, nor insult, nor the ill-success of his attempts, 
nor, what is most stinging of all, the reproaches of those for whom 
he was working,—reproaches that wring the soul, and are as the 
sponge on which the mocking soldier presented vinegar to the lips of 
Jesus. What invincible reliance on himself he must have had, and 
what faith in his ultimate success to be able to withstand such 
repeated misfortunes! It is like that of those martyrs who seemed to 
_ see before their earthly eyes the ideal which their brain had conceived. 
Palissy went forth to the discovery of his enamels with as firm a step 
as did Columbus towards the new world. One saw in his mind’s eye 
the shining surface of his medallions, his dishes ornamented with 
reptiles and creeping things, and his busts, as clearly as the other 
in imagination perceived the bending cocoa-nut trees and the blue 
horizon of the country he believed to exist ; calm and self-possessed in 
the midst of opposition and revolt. Such, again, was Joan of Are 
until the day when her heroic commission was accomplished. 

“When I had passed some time in bed,” continues Palissy, “ and 
after having communed with myself and come to the conclusion that 
when a man has fallen into a ditch it is his first duty to try and pick 
himself out of it again, being myself in a similar position, I began to 
do a little painting, and by degrees I made sufficient money to pay off 
my debts. But in baking another furnace-full another misfortune 
befell me which I had little foreseen: the vehemence of the flame 
thrust a quantity of dust and ashes against my pieces, and the enamel 
being in a liquid state, they stuck to it, rendering my surfaces rough 
and unsightly. Notwithstanding this, I had a good hope of eventually 

G2 


84 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


getting up in the world by means of the said art; and to this end I 
had a number of earthen lanterns,* made by a neighbouring potter, 
with a view of preventing the recurrence of the above calamity. I put 
my pieces into them, and thus they were protected from the adhesion 
of the cinders. This scheme succeeded well, and has been in use unto 
this day.” 

Thus he continues to recount his misfortunes, and one can scarcely 
find any other clue to his perseverance, even after the failure of so 
many tentative and solitary efforts, than that which suggests his fear 
of divulging to his fellow-workers the secret which he paid for so 
dearly. It is certain that the potters and glass-workers could speedily 
have spared him his disappointments, which he here somewhat proudly 
recounts with all the self-reliance and ostentation of one who has 
suffered much, and who owes his success to himself alone. 

He goes on to say: ‘‘And so I continued battling with adverse 
circumstances for the space of fifteen or sixteen years; whenever 1 
had succeeded in obviating one source of failure, another presented 
itself where I looked not for it. At last I hit upon the way of making 
several vessels, which were a sort of mixed enamel like jasper, and the 
produce of this fed me for some years; but I was always thinking 
how I could go beyond. When I had invented how to make rustic 
pieces, I was more annoyed and dispirited even than before; for when 
I had made various rustic basins and bowls, and put them into the 
furnace, I found that some of my enamels had succeeded and melted 
well, whilst others had done badly; some also were burnt up, and all 
because they were composed of different materials in different propor- 
tions ; some being more or less fusible; for instance, the green colour 
of the lizards would be burnt before the brown of the serpents had 
even melted ; and again I found that the colour of the serpents, cray- 
fish, tortoises and crabs, had melted before the white colour had 
arrived at any degree of beauty.” 

At last, what with repeated mortifications, scenes of social troubles, 
and hostility of feelings, fatigue and disappointment, and physical dis- 


* In these days the “lanterns,” of which our enterprising potter appropriates the 
invention, are still in use. The French word for them is “ cazettes,” and the English 
call them “seggars.” They consist of reversed earthenware cases, in which are placed 
specimens of fine and delicate porcelain, or of decorated faience, and which then are 
placed into the oven, or furnace, until it is quite full. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 85 


organisation, exhaustion supervened: “All these drawbacks,” he says, 
“caused me such trouble and vexation of spirit, that, before I had 
succeeded in reducing my enamels to a fusible condition over a given 
heat, I myself was at death’s door. For the space of ten years I was 
in so emaciated a condition that my legs and arms had no longer any 
form or substance ; they were straight from the top to the bottom. I 
was so reduced that my clothes would no longer keep on me; my 
garters fell to my ankles as soon as I set foot to the ground. I often 
went to walk in the meadows of Xaintes,* and pondered over my 
misery and misfortune, especially because nothing that I did was 
approved of in my home. I had no peace or quietness there; I was 
scorned and laughed at. Nevertheless, I continued to make a few 
vessels of divers colours, the sale of which kept me alive in one way 
or another, and the hope of ultimate success was so strong in me that 
many a time, when persons came to see me, I put on a cheerful 
countenance to entertain them, when in reality God knows how sad I 
felt! 

“T persevered, however, so as at last to be able to make a good deal 
of money from one branch of my work; but another grief was in store 
for me: I found that, owing to the influence of successive heat, cold, 
wind and rain, sunshine, and exposure of every kind, a great portion 
of my work was spoilt before ever it was baked; and so often was this 
the case that I was constrained to borrow woodwork, laths, slates, and 
nails, in order to preserve my productions. Sometimes, when building 
materials failed, 1 had to be content with substituting branches of 
trees and ivy for them; so that whenever I found myseif in the 
possession of a little means, I used to pull down what I had built up, 
and build it better. For this cause other artizans, such as cobblers, 
shoemakers, constables, and attorneys, and a number too of old gossips, 
without reflecting that my art could not be carried out without a good 
deal of space and room, went about saying that I did nothing but 
alternately build and demolish, so that they blamed whom they ought 
rather to have pitied, seeing that I had to spend on my art what was 
necessary for my food; and, what was more to endure than aught 


* Xaintes, or Saintes, capital of Saintonge, now in the province of the Charente- 
Inférieure,” one of the strongholds of Calvinism. It is a very picturesque town, 
where are to be seen vestiges of Roman dominion; the remains of an amphitheatre, of 
a triumphal arch, &c., &c. 


86 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


else, these taunts and mockeries were originated at home, where 
people were so senseless as to maintain that I ought to do my work 
without tools, which was more than unreasonable; and the less 
reasonable it was the more it pained me. For several years having 
nothing wherewith to cover my furnace, I was all night exposed to 
rain and wind without help, succour or consolation, except from the 
owls which shrieked on one side of me, while the dogs howled on the 
other. Sometimes the wind blew over and under my furnace with 
such violence, and the tempest was such that 1 had myself to give up 
work, and leave all to their mercy, not without much loss of time and 
trouble. Several times it has happened to me that, having been 
compelled by heavy rain to sacrifice my work and leave it, I have gone 
indoors to bed with not a dry thread about me at midnight, or at 
break of day as dirty and drenched as one who had been dragged 
through the ditches and slums of the town; and even then I had 
without any light to seek my way in the dark, stumbling and knock- 
ing up against things like one intoxicated, sad and grieved at heart 
in that, after long labour, I found that I had worked in vam. And 
when, drenched and soaked, at last I reached my chamber, I found 
there a still greater persecution, which now makes me wonder that I 
am yet alive, and not consumed with sorrow.” 

Here this dramatic and picturesque narration finishes. In it the 
real nature of the man is entirely visible, but the artist and seeker are 
not made manifest. “Mrs: Theory,” who has listened to this “long 
story” with more patience than interest, because Science has brain 
instead of heart, is not to be deceived or put off: “ You have made 
me a grand discourse concerning the faults and drawbacks which 
attend the art of earth, but they only serve for frightful examples to 
me; for you have as yet told me nothing of the process of making 
enamel.” . 

“The enamels which I make consist of tin, lead, iron, steel, anti- 
mony, zaffre, copper, sand, samphire, granulated cinders, litharge, 
and of stone from Périgord,” replies Practice. She might have 
answered nothing at all as far as the other is concerned, but she adds: 
“The result of the mistakes I made in mixing all my enamels in 
given quantities, taught me more than did my successes. Therefore 
I presume that you are working to discover what these quantities 
should be, just as I did, for without this trouble science would be too 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE. 87 


cheaply got, and you might sink into contempt of it.” A saying full 
of profound meaning; under a mask of irony it is a formula of the 
deepest good sense, which comprises consolation in all trials, and the 
secret to all the successes in life. 

The “ Art of Earth” concludes with a virulent declamation on the 
part of Dame Practice against Dame Theory, who has had the imper- 
tinence to make mention of the noble terrene art as of “an art 
mechanical, with which it is not easy to dispense.” Dame Practice 
enumerates all the professions which are connected with it, either by 


GOBLET ORNAMENTED WITH FOSSIL SHELLS. 


r (Louvre Museum.) 


theory or practice, gives an elaborate history of it, and concludes with 
this master-climax: “ Historians assure us that when the art of earth 
was invented, it threw vessels of marble, alabaster, chalcedony, and 
jasper altogether into contempt!” 

We have stated that it was in Paris, in 1580, that Palissy 
published his “ Admirable Discourse,” and also there, that, from 1575 
to 1584, he opened what we call his conferences, or lectures, excusing 
himself with modesty, and with truly Gallic irony, that he only 
possessed good sense and experience, without knowing either Latin, 
Greek, or Hebrew. He had collected in one room all that could serve 


88: MASTERPIEOCES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


to demonstrate his theories in chemistry, natural history, geology, 
mineralogy, and mostly, no doubt, with specimens of those petrified 
shells he has used so abundantly for the decoration of his pottery, 
and which belong chiefly to the basin of Paris, as did also his 
reptiles, plants, and fishes. He has kindly left us some illustrations 
of this period, such as portraits of doctors or artists, for example, 
Ambrose Paré, or Barthélemy Prieur, who followed his course of 
lectures, neither interrupting nor contradicting him on any one occa- 
sion. Palissy had bills printed and stuck about Paris, the price of 
admission being three francs; rather a heavy sum for that period. 

We are probably only acquainted with the secondary, or commercial, 
portion of his work. Even if these rustic basins, these dishes, over- 

crawled with reptiles, these ewers and goblets covered with shells, 
- these scooped-out plates, these candlesticks, these pavements enamelled 
with biblical or mythological subjects, these statuettes, the authorship 
of which is uncertain, did not suffice to assert sufficient originality of 
mind and workmanship in him, we should have, in addition, the 
writer, the man of science, but especially the man of indomitable 
perseverance and energy. 

But for the sake of justice, as well as to explain the favour which 
he enjoyed among his contemporaries, we must add that he owed his 
certificate of “inventor of rustic figures to the King, and to the 
Queen, his mother,” to certain rustic grottos, works which, from their 
decorative quality as a whole, corresponded with what was held in 
such high esteem by della Robbia. An Italian romance of the day, 
full of love and lovemaking, called the “ Dream of Polyphile,” and 
which had an immense vogue at that period, may have suggested his 
idea, but with regard to the execution of it Palissy must have inspired 
himself almost directly from the stucco ornaments, the wreaths of 
flowers and of fruits, and grotesque terminal figures, which, especially at 
Fontainebleau, framed the compositions of the Rosso or the Primatice. 

In the first years of his struggle, towards 1562, he had accom- 
plished at the Castle of Ecouen, for his protector, the Constable Anne 
of Montmorency, one of those works of his new and marvellous inven- 
tion. It is also well known that he decorated with them the Parks 
of the Castle of Reux, in Normandy, and of Chaunes, at Nesles, in 
Picardy. A drawing of the time, which has been preserved by a 
distinguished architect and amateur, M. Destailleurs, will enable the 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 89 


reader to form a tolerably correct idea of the interior of these grottos, 
places for repose and rest, well worthy of pleasing the taste of that 
Renaissance which showed itself to be at once so childish and so 
refined. 


= SS 
SSE 


im 
| 
Mi | 


~~ 


ae 
CO)-4 
AES 


SOTAIN 
DESIGN FOR A GROTTO, BY BERNARD PALISSY. 
(In Mons. Destailleur’s collection.) 


A. The margin, or leaning-stone—B. The receptacle for water. C. The fountain. 
D. Places for medallions. 


It was a large ornamental structure, scooped out of the ground ; 
one might descend into it to walk and cool oneself, but I imagine that 
it was when leaning on the balustrade above that one was best able to 


go MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


enjoy this whimsical and brilliant picture ; the walls of it were made 
to imitate rocks roughly hewn with a pick-axe; the arched ceiling 
was supported by columns and pilasters ; medallions formed projections 
at intervals, where busts of heroes were raised on small pedestals. In 
the centre there was a fountain that played, and seemed to lend life and 
animation to a world of reptiles and fishes lying unperceived until the 
eye became accustomed to the semi-darkness of the spot. On the 
gravel, seen through the translucent water of the stream, a carp or 
two, and a pike, or jack, heave lazily ; a snake along the edge pursues 
a frog, a lizard is watching a butterfly, while a tortoise drags on its 
weight, and amidst soft mosses and bending reeds, in the bed of the 
stream, you see a crab and crawfish gliding. The tender, nature- 
loving soul of Palissy has forgotten nothing. He has left us a written 
description and plan of the grotto: ‘“ There is a series of rustic benches 
and seats. Above the arch,” he adds, “I would plant fruitful trees 
and shrubs, and grasses bearing berries, and~ seeds, of which I know 
the birds to be fond, that I may accustom them to come and settle 
there and sing their little songs, in order to give pleasure to those 
who are walking inside the said grotto and garden.” In another 
place he wishes that all the creatures he has sculptured and enamelled 
should be placed in a spot accessible to nature, so that natural serpents 
or lizards should often come and admire them. It is well ascertained 
—hence, no doubt, came the epithet, Bernard des Tuileries—that 
Palissy executed a grotto similar to the one we here described, at least 
in its principal features, for Catharine de Medicis. One of the greatest, 
because most erudite, in research, M. de Montaiglon, found an esti- 
mate for the building of four bridges he was to have erected there, 
which would lead one to suppose that the grotto was to be placed in 
the middle of a basin or water-course. These estimates, dated February 
22, 1570, indicate that the master potter had two assistants, who, if 
not his sons, were of his kinsfolk, by name Nicholas and Mathurin 
Palissy. Remains of this grotto were discovered in 1855, in the 
digging of a trench to repair the garden fountains. They were carried 
to the Ceramic Museum at Sevres, which already possessed the capital 
of a column. 3 
Ten years later, in August, 1865, chance brought to light what 
were, conjecturally, the very ovens and moulds Master Bernard made 
use of. In searching the Cour d’honneur, at the spot where the 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE, gt 


works for the rebuilding of the gallery of the Louvre cease, and the 
foundation of the new apartments of state are laid, the navigator’s 
pickaxe came against some old brickwork; the bricks here and there 
were vitrified, there were seggars, and, further on, two furnaces ; in 
the one on the left side were large fragments of moulds. ‘The moulds 
cast from human faces, or from plants and divers things, leave very 
little doubt as to their origin. One of them gives the relief of a bust 
formed entirely of shells; others, that of members, drapery, and pieces 


HAND-CUP, OR GOBLET, WITH NATURAL LEAVES, 
(In Baron Samuel de Rothschild’s collection.) 


of striped material. Now, in the manuscript memoir in the possession 
of M. B. Fillon, amidst other fantastic objects destined to compose the 
rock of the fountain, Palissy offers to the Queen, “a terminal figure 
made up of sea-shells, the nose, the mouth, the chin, forehead, and 
cheeks, and all the rest of the body: item, three or four with strange 
garlands and head-dresses,”’ &c. These moulds have been carefully 
preserved. Who knows whether, in carefully searching the gardens 
of the Tuileries, we may not some day find a portion of the grotto 
itself, for, having passed out of fashion, may it not have been buried 
out of sight ? 


94 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


any splendidly rare specimen of which, perhaps, about ten copies may 
be extant.* 

Perhaps, however, it is we who look too closely at things which 
were only intended to be seen at a certain distance, and produce a 
general effect. It 1s possible, too, that these basins were not intended 
to be the ornament of dressers and shelves, but rather to be placed 
flat on a table, and filled with water. This curious fashion, quite in 
accordance with the taste of the period, may have been suggested by 
a passage in the “Dream of Polyphile,” which may have impressed 
Palissy’s imagination; in the fountain where Polyphile bathes in 
company with the five nymphs, which was all decorated with mosaics, 
“the water was so limpid and clear, that, in looking into it, one might 
have fancied the fishes to be really in motion, they were so excellently 
imitated ; carps, lampreys, perch, trout, crawfish, and many others.” 
Hither Palissy or some one of his imitators has cast, in tin, the “ Ewer 
of Briot” and his round dish of “the Four Elements.” I could, there- 
fore, without much regret, see them eliminated from his works, but 
not so his dishes and plates with fruit, with flat wide margins, where 
in the centre stands a figure of Charity, or the female gardener, or else 
Vertumnus and Pomona. Together with his rustic basins, his large 
decorated medallions will remain to him, like the Galba, the basins 
belonging to M. Andrew Fontaine, and the fragments at Sevres, 
and also those charming plates for fruit, ornamented with grotesque 
masked figures, alternate with little flowers or a thick twisted cord, 
like a widows girdle. Should we restrict his works to those of 
a more sober taste, it would in no way diminish their merit, and the 
respect with which he is already regarded by serious minds would 
only be enhanced and increased. 

* Mons. André Pottier, of Rouen, in his “ Inédited French Monuments,” tells of a 
process of moulding of which he found the secret in a work without a title, dated from 
the end of the sixteenth century ; “In order to prepare the composition they used a 
tin dish, on the surface of which were stuck, by means of Venetian turpentine, the 
leaves with veinings, the shingles from the river beds, the petrified stones and shells, 
&e., to be reproduced; then they were sorted and arranged in their destined places, 
and fixed by means of a fine thread which tied them on, and then passed through to 
the other side of the dish, which was perforated with a long skewer or needle. Then 
the mould was cast in fine plaster.” ; 

The thickness of Bernard Palissy’s reliefs is always slight. Mons. Avisseau, junr., 
(for the father, whose biography is so touching but so little known, has been some time 


dead) in order to execute his masterpieces uses no mould. He merely models his figures 
and animals. His sister models flowers and leaves with charming elegance and grace. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCEH, 95 


In this classification, which is rendered imperatively necessary by 
the memory of our great inventor of rustic figures, we must be assisted 
by the mark of a fleur-de-lis, B, which Monsieur A. Tainturier was | 
the first to identify, printed on the reverse side of some of Palissy’s 
works, but we may more certainly be guided by exercising our critical 
judgment with reference to authentic documents on the subject. 
Thus, it is hardly probable that a determined Calvinist should have 
employed his time in producing images of saints. This repugnance 
is easy to prove in the writings of a jeweller, designer and engraver 


A PALISSY DISH CALLED “ CHARITY.” 
(At the Louvre Museum.) 


of the highest ability, who lived at Paris at that time, and with whom 
Palissy was probably acquainted ; his name was Etienne Delaulne. 

A passage in the “ Diary” of Heroard, the first medical attendant of 
Louis XIII.’s childhood, mentions his works; and, although it does 
not positively assert that Palissy was the author of the “ Wet-Nurse,” 
which is the most exquisite, both in sentiment and workmanship, of 
those which are attributed to him, such as the “ Child with Dogs,” or 
the “ Hurdy-gurdy Player,” &., it goes to prove that the moulds he 


96 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


used were still in existence in 1604, and that a potter of Fontainebleau 
took casts from them. Besides, the costumes of these figures and 
groups, which have no other claim to interest than their rareness, 
seem to be subsequent to the time of Palissy. 

But we must in all haste screen him from the charge of being the - 
author of that dish with the ill-grouped and ill-executed figures of 
Henry IV. and his family. | 

When this Béarnais reigned, Bernard Palissy had been long dead. 


THE NURSE, 
(At the Louvre Museum.) 


Where, and how? In a dungeon of the Bastille, as if Destiny had 
esteemed him worthy of the martyr’s palm, in recompense for so 
persevering and laborious an existence. 

It is supposed that it was in 1589 (for the date of the death of the 
great workman is scarcely better ascertained than that of his birth), that, 
a prisoner in the cause of religion, that soul which yielded neither to 
failure nor misery, nor to the humiliation of imprisonment, nor the me- 
naces of a king, quitted life., He was over eighty years of age when he 
died. It is recorded by the Sieur de Aubigné, that the previous year 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE. 97 


Henry III. visited him in his cell, and excused himself for thus being 
constrained to leave him to the mercy of his enemies. “Sire,” 
answered Bernard, “I am ready to give up my life for the glory of 
God. Thou hast often told me that thou art sorry for me, but it is 
I who am sorry for thee, who hast pronounced those words: I am 
constraimed! Sire, these are not the words of a King. I can do 
more than thou, or those who constrain thee, the partisan of the 
Guises and all thy people, for I, Sire, know how to die !” 


PALISSY FRUIT PLATE. 
Cin M. Dutuit’s collection.) 


Are not these noble words, full of the deepest meaning, and would 
; it not be well if the sayings of the Greeks and Romans were to be for 
atime laid aside, and this one taught in their stead, in the schools 
} and to the rising generation of France ? 

_ The work of Palissy—inasmuch as it was an application of coloured 
enamel to earthenware—had, even in his day, and in almost every 
province, imitators and copyists. In our day a potter, who was also 
an indefatigable seeker and collector, has reproduced a part of his work. 

H 


98 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


More than one forger has attempted to obliterate the blank stamp, 
which reproduces his name Punt, and which he prints in the paste 
or clay, on the reverse side of his products. M. Pull is, therefore, in 
no way responsible for all of them. 

He is like those Palissys of yesterday, who make such seep fac- 
similes of originals that one cannot recognise the true piece, except by 
its characteristic lightness, which at a touch is perceptible. We may 
also mention that the details, such as the flowers, masks, grotesque 
figures, rope ornaments, &c., are less delicate and less distinct in the 
spurious imitations; and (excepting in the jaspered ones) the enamels 
are less in harmony, especially the green tints. 

The works of Palissy have reference to a special taste and a special 
fashion. They had not that general character which indicates the 
opening of a new art toa whole epoch. They were personal, they 
almost died out with the “earthenware worker” who had practised 
and introduced them, and with the century that saw them flourish. 
That which answered the purpose of a real and actual requirement 
was the art of decoration applied to articles for daily and common use. 
Having been originally imported into France by Italian workmen, 
it rapidly transferred itself into a national thing, the history of which, 
however concise and brief, we should pause to contemplate. 

It is quite evident that, for every-day and common occasions, glazed 

or enamelled earthenw we was always in use, the process being carried out 
with lead or tin varnish; it is quite clear, too, that the kitchen and 
domestic ware in feudal times cannot have been in any way similar to 
that off which Jacques Bonhomme cut his black bread. ‘Towards the 
year 1580, a species of ware was made at Lyons “after the Viennese 
fashion.” But it was only in the latter years of the sixteenth century 
that ornamental “ faience,” made in France, succeeded in competing, 
with any degree of success, with plate, as it had done in Italy. 
- Louis of Gonzaga, when he established ‘himself in the Duchy of 
Nevers, which was his wife Henrietta of Cleves’ wedding portion 
(she was one of the three Graces at the Court of Charles IX.), sum- 
moned to him various Italian potters, who, finding the materials 
placed at their disposal to be excellent, produced majolica scarcely 
distinguishable from the more inferior of Urbino. The founder of 
this dynasty of Franco-Jtalian Ceramic artists was named Peeiaue 
Conrade. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 99 


The most remarkable specimens of that period, which only offer a 
purely historical interest, are now at the Hotel Cluny; especially an 
immense basin or fountain, the handles formed of twisted serpents 
and of maritime gods distending themselves in the water. Later on, 
Nevers imitated these potteries that Venice had herself borrowed 
from the Hast; the ground, of a lapis blue, is much veined and 
streaked with white, or traversed with grotesque figures in yellow. 
The charming square we here reproduce is similarly decorated. It 
was brought away from the little castle belonging to the Dukes of 
Nevers, and which now is destroyed. Later still, comical Chinese 
figures, traced in manganese violet colour, stand opening their sun- 


ENAMELLED SQUARE, TAKEN FROM THE CASTLE OF THE DUKES OF NFVERS, 


= shades and fans in the midst of impossible scenery. The Custodes 
3 succeeded to the Conrades. All these, with only a very few exceptions, 
- were unworthy of detaining any amateur of delicate taste. The statues 
3 F and statuettes of the local saints are coarse, and the ornamentation of 
3 them is hard and roughly executed. 

% ~ Monsieur de Champfleury has, with much sense and observation, 
— brought forward the real character of the Nevers ware ; it 1s essentially 
a vulgar sort of crockery from its very popularity ; Ae this is pecu- 
a pety shown by the mottoes it selects. During the eighteenth century 
H 2 


100 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


it accepted all the popular songs and sayings, all the bouts-rimés, 
which in our day, especially in France, are bestowed only on reed- 
pipes or dessert-crackers. It was the custom to have them engraved 
by couples setting up house, together with the patron saint of either 
or both. Pieces were presented to the parish priest, bearing upon 
them the representation of the seven sacraments, to which in his affec- 
tions matrimony had never succeeded. It was on the pedestal of a 
figure of Bacchus astride on a tub, with a leg on either side of it, 
that Victor Hugo scribbled these lines in pencil : 


“Je suis fort triste, quoiqu’assis sur un tonneau, 
D’étre de sac 4 vin devenu pot a l'eau.” 


Monsieur Champfleury has collected a whole series of plates and — 
salad-bowls, with the help of which one may follow, month by month, 
the successive movements of the public mind, from the first gleams of 
lightning which announced the approach of the revolution of 1789, 
even to the year 1793, when thunder rolled and the storm was at its 
height. One rather singular fact is that, at the time when the tri- 
coloured flag waved triumphantly, and everywhere inspired public and — 
patriotic legends, such a colour as red did not exist on the palette of the 
potters of Nevers, so that it had to be replaced on crockery by yellow; 
the tricolor consisting, therefore, of white, blue and yellow. This 
whole, series, which has well deserved to be denominated as “speaking — 
ware, is actually more eloquent than the prose writings of many 
authors, who contemptuously pass over these naif and robust records 
of French history. ) 

The greater part of the Nevers furnaces gradually went out, one by 
one, from the first years of that century. Porcelain for the higher 
and better classes, and pipe-clay for the use of the poor, caused faience 
to become quite forgotten. That of Nevers was composed of a kind of 
pliable clay which may be taken as a type, because it is the lightest 
and the most sounding, as well as that which can best bear extreme 
heat, and which, when that is done, presents the. most homogeneous 
effect. 

‘The paste is formed of a mixture of two kinds of clay, composed 
almost exclusively of silex and aluminum, with a small quantity 
of carbonate of lime; the one is of a greenish whity-brown colour, 
and the other of a brownish-yellow mixed with lumps of dark grey, 


EHNAMELLED FAIENCE, lol 


and containing a small quantity of carbonate of lime. The proportion 
_ of this to the other is from two to three-fifths. They are thrown 
into a large basket, which is emptied into a larger square case, which 
is supplied with water from a reservoir above; these ingredients are 
then mixed together by means of a wheel and shaft, set in motion 
by horse or water-power. This in French is called the “ patouillage ” 
r “treading down.” | 

| The enamel of Nevers is very compact ; it is composed of lead, tin, 
_ sea-salt, and a sort of sandstone found at Decize, in that neighbourhood ; 
it is previously pounded in a mill. The enamel is produced by sud- 
_ denly plunging the piece, which has already been transformed into 

biscuit paste, by once baking, into a liquid slightly thickened with a 


A PLATE WITH PATRIOTIC EMBLEMS, 


q " kind of dust made out of the fakin up and mixing of the elements 
_ above mentioned, and is far from being the same for enamel as for 
E> porcelain. This biscuit, being porous, quickly absorbs all the liquid 
a part of the combining matter, leaving on the surface a sort of farina- 
 ceous substance resembling coarse flour. In this state the piece is 
transported to the decorator’s studio. 
Almost every kind of decoration—except that which pertains to 
commercial mottoes and signs, and also to certain methods belonging to 
_ lithography or chromo-lithography—is executed from a slight distance, 


102 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


that is, with the hand raised above it by means of a long pliable thick 
but finely-pointed brush, made of the outer hairs of the interior of 
cow's ears. 

Besides a thorough knowledge of how to modify certain tints, which 
often vary from dark to light, and from brown to rose-colour when 
passing through the drying influence of the furnace, the decorator 
must be possessed of great lightness of touch. This porous surface, 
greedy of moisture, will not bear re-touching. The ee must be 
effected with flat wide touches. 

In this consists the incontestable superiority of the furnace-heated 
faience over the porcelain and crockery of the muffle kiln, such as 
those of Marseilles or Strasbourg ; on these last the decoration remains 
almost entirely on the surface, it is caught in between two kinds of 
glass; in the former, on the contrary, it has penetrated so deep as to — 
become incorporated with the mass. Such are the porcelains and 
pottery of the East, the faience of Nevers, Moustiers and Rouen. 
Besides this they have the practical advantage of resisting friction, be- 
cause all its decorative colours have completely melted by being sub- 
jected to so high a temperature, and are absolutely glazed on the 
surface. 

At the present day there is still one manufactory of great commercial 
importance at’ Nevers, that of Monsieur Signoret. Although but little 
of decorative art is baked there—for notwithstanding great encourage- 
ment from all sides, the architects dare use it but very moderately—it 
was in that factory, which employs a considerable number of hands, that 
the entire ornamentation of a house at Bernay, in Normandy, was 
made of late years. We have seen and been over it, and we can assure 
the reader that nothing could be more cheerful or agreeable to the eye 
than those pavements bearing the initials or name of their owner, 
those incrusted plates on the frontages, the coloured balustrades and 
balconies which look out on the court-yard and gardens. base 

It is also at the Signoret factory that the vases, decorated in the 
style of the eighteenth century, with primitive landscapes, were made, 
ornamenting the corners of the terraces so elegantly, and those flower- 
pots which are ranged symmetrically before the green-houses and con- 
servatories ; the lilac petunias and red geraniums, the aloes and yuccas, — 
with their stiff unbending leaves, acquire greater importance and 
produce a better effect when seen to spring out of elegant bouquet- 


USK 
ar 
Re. 


‘NS 


laude Bigo Lora 
zal : 


ait 
| 


; iM Ww i ai) 


BENITIER OF NEVERS FAYENCE, 


Page 102. 


ENAMELLED FAIENOE. 103 


holders, of wide circumference, decorated with deep blue on a white 
ground. It is anything but a picturesque style of garden ornamenta- 
tion, but it is exactly adapted to a landscape garden laid out in the - 
French fashion. The distinguishing mark of the Signoret manufactory 


at Nevers is this: M C 


The only thing that is wanting at Nevers, for it to regain its former 
rank and station in the Ceramic art, is the founding of schools where 
the children of potters who are destined to succeed their fathers, should 
be taught to be not only expert workmen but also reasoning artists. 
The division of labour, that law which is daily becoming more socially 
fatal and more tyrannical, will sooner or later succeed in extinguishing 
all mental occupations. If we cannot altogether remove the obstacle, 
we must divert the course of it. Thus, in this instance, there might 
be practical lectures, a course of instruction, in which the pupils would 
have placed before them, for examination, specimens of pottery and 
Ceramic art chosen from among the best collections and productions of 
all periods and of all nations, so as to educate their minds and accustom 
them to comprehend, by comparison, the general laws of beauty. It is 
no use requesting the potters of Nevers to give us Persian or Japanese 
decoration in preference to the Htruscan or Italian style ; they would 
not understand us; we must bring them by slow degrees to understand 
what harmony of decoration is, and then urge them to compete for 
prizes in the making both of the dishes for a palace and of plates for 
the use of the poor. 

Monsieur Chantrier, an artist of Nevers, might no doubt have-been 
the means of putting this scheme into execution, but he died leaving 
scarcely more than one master-piece behind him—a decorated dish for 
Monsieur du Broc de Seganges, an artist of the town, who has him- 
self written an excellent history of the Nevers potters’ art. 

The truest French “faience,’ and that which has obtained the 
most legitimate success, is the Rouen ware. That alone, in imitation 
of the Oriental products, has succeeded in joining an enamel harmonious 
and brilliant, to a truly original, refined, varied, supple and bold style 
of decoration. Yet, notwithstanding, it is exactly this one which con- 


104 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


temporaneous Ceramists, so unfortunately induced by the caprice of the 
public to imitate instead of originating, have neglected to reproduce. 
In fact, I believe that Rouen now no longer possesses one single furnace. 
This is in itself a curious thing, for, however remote they may be, 
the traditions of a manufacture are always found in some corner of the 
country where a special industry flourished for a long space of time. 


“et ay 
wast i Bog 
peers < 


{ cee. 


. ‘4 


s | | ) AL 


+N 
; pas yr 


DISH OF ROUEN WARE, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
(At M. Mat. Meusnier’s collection.) 


It was thus that Monsieur Davillier recently met with one of the last 
descendants of the Hispano-Moorish potters, at Manises, in Spain. We 
transcribe his account of it :—“ After traversing the fertile Huerta for 
the space of an hour, in the midst of a verdant landscape, I observed 
the dome of the church of Manisés, whose shining tiles, of a sort of 
copper lustre, were beaming in the sun. A little while after I 


EHNAMELLED FAIENCE, 105 


was with the maker of ‘ golden ware,’ as they style it at Valentia. This 
‘maker's’ name is Jayme Casseus, and he is a humble amateur, who, 
when his little inn is devoid of visitors, spends his leisure hours in - 
making faience. The decoration of his pieces is specially the province 
of his wife; which chiefly consist of cups, plates, and a few fanciful 
vases, together with a few things of a simply ornamental character. 
They are sold for a few pence, except those copper-coloured lustre 
cups which are used to discover the quality of wine, which allows 
you to see the bottom of the cup according as it happens to be thick 
or clear.” Sictransii gloria... .... 

The Rouen faience had no less success from the seventeenth till the 
middle of the eighteenth century, at least in France, than the His- 
pano-Moorish vases, with metallic lustre, had in Italy the century 
before. “Louis XIV. himself had thoughts of becoming a potter,” says 
Saint-Simon, at the time when the “Sun King” sent his massive gold 
and silver plate to the Mint. 

One might almost write a complete heraldic history of France in a 
room in which were united all the dishes, plates, cups, and mugs in 
the shape of helmets; in short, all the pieces of Rouen pottery which 
have armorial bearings for their decoration. At those periods, when 
a jealous, imperious royalty had exhausted and oppressed the nobility 
of which Richelieu had struck down the most haughty and disaffected 
heads, it must have been an ornamental and more luxurious kind of 
ware that replaced for every-day use the vessels of metal. Monsieur 
André Pottier, of Rouen, himself a descendant of a family of dis- 
tinguished Ceramists, and curator of the museum of that town, may 
some day tell us what prices it once fetched. But it is quite evident, 
from the size of the pieces and the perfect success of the pencil 
sketches, that the price was considerable, and the influence of aristocratic 
protection is keenly felt in the contemplation of it. 

It is well ascertained that at the middle of the sixteenth century the 
furnaces of Rouen were alight, and thence came the enamelled pave- 
ments of Ecouen, which recount the histories of Quintus Curtius and 
Mutius Sceevola.* Exactly one century after, in 1647, plates and pots 
were signed there by potters who undoubtedly came from Nevers, one 
of whom happened to be named Custode. A few years previously, an 


* In the possession of the Duc d’Aumale, at Orleans House, Twickenham. 


106 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


usher of the Queen’s chamber, Nicholas Poirel, Lord of Grandvyal, had 
obtained a concession for fifty years of the manufacture in that province. 
Rouen also imitated Holland, and especially Delft, but it was not from 
Delft, which imitated Oriental porcelain, nor from imitations of Italian 
majolica, that Rouen borrowed the brilliant style of decoration with 
central flowers, which, composed merely of blue, black or red, fills the 


CIDER PITCHER OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 


(Rouen ware.) 


whole inner circle of a dish with so much charm and harmony. This 
makes itself felt when a fine original specimen is placed before you, 
and one can easily understand that some of such dishes as shine out, 
like stars of different brightness, from the cabinets of Monsieur Loysel, 
of Bernay, or from the Leveel collection at the Museum of Cluny, 
which at a public sale command a sum of more than a thousand frances. 


ENAMELLED FATENCE. 107 


The Duke of Hamilton, in 1862, lent the decorative busts of the 
four seasons, in the fine style of the time of Louis XIV. (which 
are placed on stands of the most decorative description), to the South. - 
Kensington Museum. The flowers, which seem to creep over it, 
intertwining and interlacing with each other, are in the style of this 
pretty pitcher or cider-pot, which we bought at Bayeux in 1854, to 


Seri 
Wane 
NN deca 


= \ 
\ 
1 


CORNUCOPIA PLATE, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
(Rouen ware.) 


the great surprise of our fellow-travellers, who little imagined the 
great success in store for these seemingly common pieces. 

The so-called cornucopia style of decoration succeeded to the Chinese, 
which was not very agreeable, and only shortly preceded the total 
decadence of the art. The plate we here reproduce, the refinement 


108 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


of which is remarkable and very exceptional, is the “ cornucopia” 
style, that is, that the horn whence proceed the flowers is of a square 
shape. In reality, this sort of cornucopia was made generally of 
earthenware, and was fastened to the wall, to serve as a flower-vase 
or stand. They are still to be met with in England, but then 
generally cast in or made of tin or iron, and painted: Some of these 
exist at the Museum of Rouen, together with helmet-shaped ewers, 
Christmas slippers, inkstands, sugar basins, wig-stands, and last, but 
not least, the famous earthenware violin, the story of which—in the 
main founded on truth—afforded Monsieur Champfleury the theme 
of an amusing tale. This violin, a master-piece of Ceramic art, was 
made in Holland, possibly at Delft, and was discovered by Monsieur 
Sauvageot, at Rouen, and under the'very eyes of the most inde- 
fatigable seekers of Ceramic curiosities. Monsieur Sauvageot left 
it as an heirloom to his friend and colleague in researches, M. A. 
Pottier. os. 

Of late years, when ancient pottery nearly succumbed under the 
weight of documents, another centre of production has solicited the 
attention of amateurs: it is Moustiers, a little town in the south of 
France, which devoted itself chiefly to the production of a combina- 
tion of blue and white, and succeeded in bringing it to a high degree 
of refinement and perfection. The Moustiers enamel is of the rarest 
sort; it is of a milky-white, which, from its cohesion and fineness, 
may well compete with the bluish-white of Rouen. Monsieur 
Davillier, who, in common parlance, “invented” the Moustiers ware, 
possesses a splendidly decorated dish, representing one of those bear- 
hunts which Tempesta endowed with noise and sunshine. It is 
signed, “ G. Viry, chez Clerissy,” which Pierre Clerissy, in 1747, was 
secretary and chancellor to the King in the parliament of Provence. 
The border round this hunt is composed of masked and winged 
griffins, ancestors no doubt of that one which is seen creeping up 
behind fantastic rocks and chasms. The manufactory of Moustiers, 
as may well be seen in this elegant perforated pot for sifted sugar, 
exerted itself chiefly in the rendering of certain zerial constructions — 
and figures, with infinite minuteness and precision of touch, thin 
elongated pillars, supporting busts of long-necked women, with their 
heads bent, and to whose languid shoulders are fastened draperies, or 
grotesque and grimacing faces. These are, as it were, the troupe of 


Sy < 
SSK 
WO 

Wray 


MOUSTIERS WARE SUGAR CASTOR. 


(M. Jacquemard’s Collection.) 


Page 108. 


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ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 109 


actors and the scenery of the ideal representatives of Claude Gillot, 
the master of Watteau, or of Bérain, who was scene painter and 
designer for the artists of his time. It quickly relapses into man- . 
nerism, so that real collections consist in pieces which have more value 
than variety. The effect is monotonous: it is like the favourite crockery 


——— 
aw 


sea WOTA Ws. 


DISH DECORATED WITH BLUE. 
(Moustiers ware.) 


of a spoilt and whimsical child. In our day, Ceramists of great ability, 
namely, Messieurs Genlis and Rhudart, have succeeded in imitating 
pieces of the Moustiers ware so exactly as to render them almost 
undistinguishable from the original. 


IIo MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


We do not care more lengthily to review these ancient centres of 
Ceramic produce. We have mentioned some of the most interesting, 
at any rate, in France. 

The Dutch faience, and especially the Delft, although it has had 
many wrong-headed friends to over-estimate its good qualities,* has not 
been lowered in the estimation of impartial judges. It has counted, 
among the painters of scenes and landscapes, who made those decorated 
plaques of earthenware which were to be hung against the wall as 
pictures, men of undoubted ability; but these pieces can only be 
reckoned as isolated specimens of curiosity and merit. 

Latterly, Monsieur Pinart, who is endeavouring to overcome the 
greatest practical difficulty in the painting of the more finished 
objects upon raw enamel, and Monsieur Bouquet, who paints in 
the great heat-colours (aw grand few) landscapes which many a pro- 

fessional landscape painter might envy, have equalled, if not surpassed, 
those master-pieces of the Dutch, which some have not hesitated to 
attribute to such masters as Teniers, Karel Du Jardin, or Berghem. 

Pieces of a peculiarly lively and off-hand paimting are commonly 
the work of Marseilles. Certain bunches of roses and daisies might 
have been signed by the hand of Baptiste Monnoyer. Honoré Savy, — 
who had obtained the privilege of making porcelain, received in 1777 
the visit of the Count of Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII.: “ Mon- 
sieur was ushered into the great gallery, where he saw an immense 
quantity of faience of every sort, whose perfect quality he was kind 
enough to praise. ‘The Prince was so pleased that he placed Monsieur 
(‘le sieur’) Savy and his manufactory under his special protection, 
authorizing him to cause his coat of arms to be placed upon it, and a 
statue of the Prince himself to be erected in the midst of the gallery, 
which statue he is about to make.” 

An apt epigram, this statue in crockery, of the Prince who after- 
wards lived to translate the works of Horace! The 
mark of a fleur-de-lys, which is to be found in brown 
colour under the prettiest pieces of Marseilles ware, is 
likely to have been made by the Savy manufactory. 

Marseilles has also left us figures of birds or vege- 
tables, in relief; a hen and chickens; green cabbages ; 
turkey cocks in angry moods with tails spread out ; bundles of asparagus; 


* Allusion is here made to Demmin’s book on the Delft faience.—Ep. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. lit 


golden pheasants, or dishes of walnuts. It is, as it were, the dinner 
and dessert service of a princess transformed into a sleeping beauty 
by the fairy of faience! These birds, animals, fruits and vegetables 
have also been baked in the ovens of Germany. ‘There is, more 
especially, one service which is complete, in the “Chateau de la 
Favorite,” near Baden. 

The search into the documents of archives, or in almanacks of the 
time, has brought to light as many claims as there were important 


% oo — Xs aa 


SOUP TUREEN AFTER A SILVER PATTERN. BRETAGNE WARE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 


centres in the provinces, aiming at the nearest resemblance to plastic 


argile, and thence has arisen a great complication in the classing of all 


kinds of soup tureens, wall fountains, of ecuelles, and tiles; but how 
was one to steer clear of giving offence? Even here, if we mention 
Rennes, which made the embossed ornaments on pieces of gold and 
silver plate, we are bound to speak of Sinceny, which imitated Rouen 
china with some artistic precision and humour. Sceaux-Penthiévre 
produced figures of quite as refined and minute a character as those 
of enamelled snuff-boxes; Strasbourg made heavy imitations of 


112 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Marseilles ware, and of the pretty and irregularly distributed bunches 
of flowers of Saxony; but in the latter half of the eighteenth century 
it rivalled Rouen, Bordeaux, and many others, in fashion. _ 

Let us hasten from these, and seek refuge and hospitality bi the 
Shahs of Persia and the Rajahs of India. — 

At the retrospective exhibition of the “ Union centrale,” the Sikes 
of the West—of France or Holland—had been arranged together in 
the same room; and it is only the Rouen ware that could in any way 
stand the batilins vicinity of the basins and ewers of Persia and 
India. In Rouen ware only can one recognize a distinct expression of 
artistic merit, together with a form that, although originally borrowed. 
from those of China and Japan, but greatly modified, has lost nothing 
in adapting itself to the exigencies of French taste. The produce 
of other manufactories appeared either mean or coarse and vulgar, 
totally devoid of any originality of style. The Hast, however, carried ‘ 
all before it. _ 

The origin and date of these triumphant Oriental pieces are 
obscure. It is only lately that M. Albert Jacquemart, a writer full 
of tact and erudition, has demonstrated the difference between Indian 
and Persian earthenware. Must we understand by Persia the tract 
of country which lies between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf? — 
Is it known whether or not the kingdoms separating it from Hin- 
dostan, Afghanistan, Beloochistan, and the Punjab, had any part in 
the genius of the productions of these two people? Let us be content 
with saying that these dishes are attributed to India, whose ornaments — 
chiefly consist of bright-coloured birds perched on stalks of flowers, 
intwined and interlaced. With regard to that porcelain which was, 
by a misconstruction of terms, called Indian during the eighteenth 
century, it consists of a numerous family, of which we will Bpeok 
later on. 

Like the Hispano- Moariah pieces, the Persian ane is also 
ornamented with metallic lustres. This indicates their common origin. 
Thus, as early as the tenth century, we here find undoubted traces 
of the influence of the Arabs, who at that time were conquerors and 
monarchs. In 644, the last king of the Sassanian dynasty had been 
defeated ; but although, from these disasters, that fine kingdom gave up 
its ancient name to take the title of Iran, it never abjured its traditions 
of luxury, poetry, and sensualism. Even now, when it is scarcely more 


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Page 112. 


RENNES FAYENCE FOUNTAIN AND BASIN, 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 113 


than a vast plain of arid ground, depopulated, travellers journeying 
through Persia are struck with its scented valleys, and the supple 
intellect of its inhabitants. It is not without a cause that it has 
been called the Italy of the East; hers has been spoken of as 
the most musical language of Asia; her exquisite poetry and her 
decorative arts are worthy of exercising over ours—having due respect 
for those modern nations which so widely differ from those of the 
Renaissance—a most decisive influence. 


VASE IN IRAN PORCELAIN, 


We knew nothing of the existence or progress of Ceramic art during 
the prosperous days of Cambyses or Cyrus, or during the dismember- 


ment that followed the conquest of Alexander, and scarcely anything 
respecting the period of Arab dominion. What we are chiefly struck 
with is, that it is in that country that the richest turquoise mines in 
_ the world were discovered, those of Nichapour, which were found to 


produce the peculiar blue,—jartly green and partly grey,—these two 
| I 


li4 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


colours combining to produce the most delicate blue-green imaginable. 
It has always been remarkable that industrial art of a decorative sort 
has endeavoured to imitate, more or less exactly, some natural produce 
of great beauty and rareness. We shall have occasion to observe this 
in China with regard to jade. In the West the cloisonné enamel 
aimed at imitating the mosaics of marble and other hard stones. 

The Persians were in the habit of decorating articles of daily 
use, such as tiles for houses, pipes, gourds for wine, ice-pails, cups, 
saucers, pots for preserves, meat-dishes, dishes for fruit or vegetables, 
with whatever they considered most valuable after gold, pearls, silken 
textures and furs,—that is to say, with flowers and hunting scenes. 
The lion, buffalo, antelope, or hare-hunts have been the favourite 
recreation of kings of the oldest and highest dynasties ; we see them 
represented on granite bas-reliefs, single-handed, and piercing wild 
animals through with a spear or with a knife, or piercing them with 
their iron arrows. = 

Later on we have seen those pompous and graye princes chasing 
a falcon or a hare, supposing the Koran to haye sanctioned, even on 
works of pottery, the representation of the human form. In default 
of their own likenesses, these ancient fire-worshippers, who had by the 
sword been converted to the Mohammedan faith, decorated the walls 
of their palaces, and their rich silver plate, with representations of 
the panthers and gazelles they had hunted and slain in the green 
plains which formerly extended from the Caucasus to the Himalayas. 
Sometimes the harpy, with woman’s head and peacock’s tail, is 
discernible upon the neck of those sprinklers with long necks and 
ndrrow mouths, from which servants are instructed to sprinkle the 
garments of guests when they enter a house. 

After hunting and good living, flowers are the favourites of the 
Persians; they have a passion for them. Their poets have celebrated 
in the ae chaste and harmonious accents the love of the nightingale 
for the rose. Their carpets are like pictures of flower-beds shut in 
the courtyards of palaces, and surrounded by open-work galleries, 
which are refreshed with fountains of water, flowing into marble 
basins where they might retire from the scorching winds of Arabia. 
On them is to be seen the open tulip—mystical flower—emblem 
of a heart consumed by passion, the side view of which is rounded 
like an Ionian column, in pearly texture like the water-lily, and whose 


SOTAIN- 


Page 114. 


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PERSIAN WARE EWER MOUNTED IN METAL. 


MONT ALANS’ 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE. I15 


points are sharp as arrows, which made so deep and stinging an 
incision in the heart of the phlegmatic Dutchman. ‘There, too, we 
see gathered and tastefully arranged bouquets that speak in the 
“language of flowers” mutely, but so eloquently, that each word rivets 
the entire senses, hieroglyphics of scent and colour which die as soon 
as they are understood. 

After the tulip—originally a sacred flower—there are those flowers 
of strong and intoxicating scent which we almost always meet with in 
decoration ; the red rose, for instance, and the hyacinth, the honey- 
suckle, and the Indian and clove pink. They are either represented 
as they are in Nature, or else in totally opposite colours and converted 
into ornamenting agencies; for being very delicate in their poetry 
and arts, and even in their very existence, the Persians refine every- 
thing in the highest degree. They endow each flower and each perfume 
with a hidden meaning. 

Although they are Mussulmans, they drink with rapture the strong 
ruby wine which they gather from the crops grown on the slopes of 
their mountains. And how much lighter and more cheerful are 
their vessels than those of colder countries which only grow hops! 
Besides their richly-perfumed coffee, there are those powerful and 
lipid wines, which flow so elegantly from the golden spouts of 
their ewers and jugs. The art of pouring out gracefully is, in a 
woman, as charming as it is rare. It has been celebrated by one of 
their poets, who sings: “ L’échanson with her pitcher has sent me 
twice mad! It seems as if this rose-scented young beauty sought to 
intoxicate me with the wine she pours for me!” 

The Persians are not only decorators with perfect taste, but they 
are also potters of consummate merit. In the rich collection of 
M. Scheffer, interpreter to the Emperor, our reader might, with the 
different pieces in hand, observe the difference, somewhat remote, 
between Persian pottery and Persian porcelain. Sometimes we find 
that their pottery, which is of a silicious, very fine, and very white 
paste, has, from exposure to a high temperature, become vitrified, in 
some places even transparent. Their porcelain however, generally 
modelled in the shape of bowls, or preserve dishes, has not always a 
white ground; sometimes the ground is of a fawn colour, brown, or 
bright blue. On certain pieces the cypress, and the symbolical bull, 
has been recognized, which would lead one to imagine them to date 

12 


116 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


from the time when Persia still exclusively bowed to the religion of 
Zoroaster. 
It is not known at what period Persian products made their way 


into Europe, but a curious fact has struck us—and it is one which we - 


have often seen corroborated, when we have looked over manuscripts 
of a few years before the Crusades—either in window-sills, in galleries, 
oratories, or gardens, we find vases decorated with full-blown flowers, 
painted in blue on a white ground ; these flowers generally represent 
tulips or pinks. May we not, then, justly infer, that not only the 
flowers, but the vases in which they were contained, were brought 
over the sea, into France, by the Crusaders, who had been struck with 
their beauty ? 

Recently the Museum of Cluny h has received an important sdldtions to 
its riches, in a considerable number of these cups and dishes, collected 
in the Island of Rhodes, where they were made in the fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries. Not only do they, in-several instances, possess 
figures of men and of women in Levyantine costumes, which no doubt 
were the work of Christians, but some of them have whole lines ex- 
pressing complaints and regrets of Persian potters, then in captivity, 
in lieu of the mark of the workman; in these they lament their 
captivity, and on the margins and the reverse side of their uci 
express their exile tears. 

The starting point of this Ivan style of decoration is always a garden ; 
the plants spring from the bottom, and thence ascend like lilies or ears 
of wheat. Sometimes they are thrown up by touches of gold, which, 
not being painted under the surface, are for the most part partly 
obliterated. The most frequent colours on them are manganese lilac. 
bright yellow, green, turquoise blue, and a magnificent bright red 
colour, resembling pounded brick-dust, or unpolished red jasper. 
European potters have not yet completely succeeded in imitating 
them. The furnace which has most nearly succeeded in this, is that 


of Theodore Deck ( ‘FD ) but even that red has not a the desi- 


rable brilliancy, and its blue-green, composed of oxide of copper, cannot 
resist great heat, and is very unstable. Notwithstanding this, the 
progress lately made by the Brothers Deck has been considerable. 
The Brothers Deck were first urged to imitate Oriental—and espe- 
cially Persian—produce, by M. Adalbert de Beaumont, a traveller of 


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(Museum of the Hétel Cluny.) 
Page 116. 


oS 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE. 117 


great sagacity, and of an independent mind. Pencil and pen in hand, 
he visited Italy, Egypt, and Asia Minor, bringing back with him 
innumerable designs and copies either of detail or of general effect, and ~ 
precious scraps of that enthusiasm which kindles all it approaches. 
It was he who directed all the first attempts of the Brothers Deck, 
and since then he has taken a practical chemist, M. Collinot, into 
partnership. He it was who, in the Avenue des Parcs aux Princes, 
decorated with white plates—whereon are written verses of the Koran, 
in blue relieved characters—a house that is one of the greatest 
curiosities of the new Bois de Boulogne. It is there also that he 
engraves, with aquafortis, a series of designs he has traced, with great 
fidelity and precision, in the churches and palaces of Florence and 
Venice, in the mosques and kiosks of Cairo and Constantinople, off 
the Bedouin’s musket, and the embossed helmet of the Circassian. 
From that furnace which we see smoking in an angle of the yard, 
have issued not only vases, flower-pots of. great magnificence, and 
paving-tiles worthy of finding a place in the bath-room of one of the 
princesses in the Arabian Nights, but also the invention of a Ceramic 
manufacture of a highly aristocratic character, which passed almost 
unobserved through the critical hands of connoisseurs in Ceramic art, 
although it is worthy of the greatest attention and interest. Any 
given design is stamped and traced out upon an earthenware plate, 
that, for instance, of a branch full of leaves, the two profiles of the 
stem and of the leaf are traced with an oxide which has the property 
of remaining fixed where it is laid, as well as that of rejecting the 
proximity of those colouring enamels intended to form the tone of 
which the leaf, ground, or bird to be produced, is composed. In the 
baking this enamel, always distanced by this line, which remains as 
thin as a thread, swells up into a sort of little eminence, like the earth 
piled up on each side of a newly-made ditch. Thus is obtained, besides 
the desired tone, a relief catching every light, so that the decoration 
is shown off to the greatest advantage. All is very soft and very 
harmonious, but sometimes a trifle dull, owing to the fact that M. de 
Beaumont has adopted, rather too literally, the Oriental preference for 
intermediate colours, and also, perhaps, because the original materials 
of Europe may be of a rather coarser quality than those of Iran. 
This style of decoration he calls “ cloisonné.” 

It is a strange coincidence that our recently developed public liking 


— 


118 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


for Oriental pottery should be simultaneous with the passion for 
rare essences and ornamental flowers. We know the connection which 
existed between the solemn wig of Louis XIV. and the borders of 
Versailles, cut and shaped like the pawns of a chess-board; then, 
the flower-beds were only to contain lilies and sunflowers. The under- 
wood was cropped and shaven, in order to represent the rays of a star, — 
which met the centre of the wood ; walks were cut in lines, both sides 

alike. 


“... deux & deux, 
Comme s‘en vont les vers classiques et les boeufs.” 


It was towards the end of the eighteenth century that the pompously 
monotonous style of the French parks was succeeded by, perhaps 
rather too many, temples of the Sibyl and Chinese pagodas, orna- 
mented with chimeric figures, and by the park disposed in the English — 
fashion. In this, at least, the trees were not lopped and disfigured, 
the river was allowed the wildness of its banks, and the sheep were 
suffered to feed off the green grass of its lawns and sweeps. Within 
the last few years, especially within the last thirty years, landscape 
gardeners have better and better understood the fact that the copper 
beech, the silver-leaved willow, the sombre evergreen, and the light 
and tender hue of the birch, are like the different hues of an artist's 
palette, and may be used in a similar way, thus converting a uniform 
park, dull to the eye and senses, into a picture full of harmony, vigour, 
and charming contrast. As if endowed with a new life, modern parks 
have educated the public taste in its appreciation of the beauty of 
nature in its wildest form; they have given rise to the modern taste 
for yachting and Alpine travelling ; landscape painters have repro- 
duced every detail, even the smallest, forcing upon us, for the decora- 
tion of our rooms and walls, the representation of wild river-banks, 
little views of deserted forests, or sketches of sunny pasture-lands. 
The classic muse of the Champs Elysée is at a loss where to place her 
conventional tea-border, her angry waves, her stiffly overhanging 
rocks, and her trees like leaden toy trees; the Ecole des Beaux-Arts 
herself has closed the door upon her. 

In fact, flowers have become our constant companions at all: times 
and in all seasons. Our now more frequent intercourse with Japan, 
whose temperature is nearly the same as that of the French climate, 
the excursions of our naturalists into the forests of America, haye 


HNAMELLED FAIENCE. 119 


enriched European horticulture with the whole family of orchids, as 
variegated in colour, as quaint in form and almost in expression, as 
the dream of a jolly mandarin, together with a hundred other plants . 
for flower-beds of brilliant hue and abundant foliage. There is scarcely 
a large house now without its conservatory, and scarcely a room without 
its ornamental stand of non-deciduous plants. All this is favourable 
both to the education of the eye in its appreciation of beauty, and to 
the gracious appearance of the interior of our houses. The close 
examination of an iris, with its lilac petals, or of a lilium bending 
itself back like the claw of a Japanese crab, will teach us more of the 
depth of a colour and the charm of a jagged outline than a whole 
course of lectures from the professor in a school, although a peony 
does not wear a square cap, or a chrysanthemum wear spectacles. The 
charming combinations of flowers which ornament the flower-beds of 
our squares and gardens, or scent the markets, never wrote notes on 
the margin of a budget; and yet itis to the softening influence of 
their teaching that we owe the increased liking for colour in the 
public mind. At the return of autumn, Eugéne Delacroix used to 
place in his lobby great pots of chrysanthemums, which he studied as 
minutely before entering his studio as any other artist might look 
over the leaves of a portfolio containing engravings from the antique, 
and with the same care and untiring zeal. And how immortal are 
the flowers of his large pictures and other works ! 

It is to the forms and detail of the flowers of the West that our 
modern potters should turn their attention, and strive, if not to copy 
them exactly, at least to imitate them with intelligent comprehension 
of their merit. MM. Deck, Collinot, Laurin, Genlis et Rhudart 
Barbizet, Gouvrion, and others, have demonstrated to what degree of 
perfection the imitation of foreign models may be carried. They must 
now endeavour to invent and produce original ones, and some of those 
materials with which their soil furnishes them are unrivalled. I will 
only instance those brown and green enamels, of incomparable depth 
and. brilliancy, covering the more vulgar pottery of the South. It 
would suffice to cover purer, newer, and more elegant forms with it, 
to haye pieces as decorative and ornamental as can be desired. 
M. Jean’s blue enamel, obtained by a judicious superposition of melt- 
ing substance, might, by being made somewhat less smooth and less 
dark in colour, furnish groundwork of the most powerful relief. M. 


120 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Brianchon’s lustres, which imitate mother-of-pearl, and the scales of 
the bleak in their prismatic hues of blue, green, grey and pink, only 
wait for a happier disposition of shape. The matter is there. 

Clever intelligent heads, and supple and experienced hands are to 
be met with everywhere. What is wanting is a soil for them to 
inhabit, and a public that will support them and reward them for 
their efforts. What has become of that factory of Rubelles, which 
made dinner-services with what was called “shadowed” enamels? 
For some years the Baron du Tremblé patronized it. The invention — 
of the process, I believe, is due to M. de Bourgoing, who had requested 
certain eminent artists to produce some choice models with it. The 
practice is the same as we have described above for squares of pave- 
ment in the middle ages; moulds in relief of sea-pieces, and landscapes, 
or scenes and wreaths of flowers and fruit, or coats of arms—these last 
were more successful—were applied on the moist paste; the turquoise, 
green, brown, violet, or other coloured glaze was poured upon this 
surface, and according to the depth of the glaze the tones were more or 
less transparent. The method is inexpensive, and has produced some 
very charming dessert-services : since then, the factory of Rubelles 
has extinguished its furnaces. 

The works and factories of Minton, in England, at present enjoy 
the greatest European celebrity. But the very perfection of the 
articles produced by them is destructive to the gratification they 
afford ; and one is surprised to find oneself less ready to accord entire 
admiration to these highly glazed baskets, or to those candelabra 
which are as highly polished as the panels of a carriage, than to the 
rougher plates and dishes of our poor peasants. We prefer porcelain. 
The English, who feel so acutely the exact turning-pomt at which — 
their qualities become defects, have called over to England, at different 
times, artists of distinction; for instance, M. Carrier-Belleuse, who 
has modelled decorative vases and statuettes in Parian, together with 
beer-jugs of different kinds; or M. Lessore, who has hit upon the 
chief secret of painting on earthenware, that of dispersing the 
colours in different thicknesses, instead of laying it equally all over 
the surface. Unfortunately, as soon as French artists have spent 
some few years across the water, they become entirely and purely 
English ; or again, having. returned to France, the pupils est have 
educated forget their peeel teaching. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. 121 


“What has {this industrial artist produced?” writes M. Léon de | 
Laborde, after the Exhibition of 1851, in speaking of Minton. “In 
the first place, excellent crockery for common use, at a very moderate - 
cost ; in these the shapes were the main object, and he has succeeded 
in suiting them to their different purposes. He began by studying 
the Ceramic art of the Greeks and Etruscans, that of the English and 
the French middle ages, of the Italians, of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries, of Bernard Palissy, and of the manufactories of Rouen and 
Nevers, and by borrowing from each one of them ideas, forms, and 
models, he has succeeded in composing a combination at once charm- 
ing, applicable to all uses, and within the reach of the poor as well as 
the rich.” Thus it is with this pint-pot of black clay, or that of 
yellow or grey stoneware, decorated with a wreath of wild hops, or 
vine-leayes, or a sprig of ivy, or a reed, to break the uniformity of the 
outline,—a masterpiece of sober good taste. 

Since the London Exhibition of 1855, and since that of 1862, 
where was to be seen the large vase modelled by M. Carrier-Belleuse, 
whose qualities of elegance and uniqueness were so little understood 
by the English press, our Ceramic artists have surpassed the pro- 
ductions of Minton in point of independence and. painted decoration, 
but none have come up to them in outline, or in suitableness to their 
several uses. These two endeavours, however, cannot go indepen- 
dently of one another. It is all very well to paint on raw enamel, in 
order to complicate the difficulty of the matter, scenes of the eighteenth 
century, or landscapes, but these will only satisfy the taste of a few. 
Earthenware demands a wider sphere; its true vocation is to be deco- 
rative. There are thousands of public places, colleges, halls, railway 
stations, the pits of theatres, staircases in public buildings, where 
it might form as grand a style of decoration as it would be wholesome 
in point of taste; one stroke of the sponge and brush would suffice 
to render to it all its lustre; and be it used either in small square 
tiles, to be subsequently put together, or in large plaques, or even in 
some cases, as M. Rousseau has endeavoured to do, in objects cut out, 
and then conjointly placed like a child’s game of patience, or patchwork, 
it will always be found to be in accordance with all description of 
stone or marble, and far less costly and more durable than stucco. 
Among other examples, we will cite that of a gamekeeper’s cottage 
in a wood, externally decorated with large plaques, on which, after 


122 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


the example given us by the Japanese, M. Bracquemond had designed 
numbers of water-wagtails settling lightly on the reeds of a marsh, 
amongst herons that stand motionless and pre-occupied ; but especially 
let us avoid human figures, for then we might fall ito mannerism 
and affectation, or find ourselves merely the authors of caricatures. 
The process of painting on lava, practised by Monsieur Jollivet 
with great facility, might, by very exact copies, save us from the 


SOFAS 


VASE IN ENAMELLED EARTHENWARE. 
(Modelled by M. Carrier-Belleuse for the works of Minton & Co., Stoke-on-Trent.) 


destruction now hanging over panels, pictures, and frescoes—these 
masterpieces of great painting in its highest form. For open-air 
use, like earthenware, it furnishes surfaces which are uninjured by ex- 
posure, either to the sun, water, frost, or the attacks of small insects. 
In its adaptability to household use, earthenware—itself very supe- 
rior to pipe-clay, which is dull and untrue of tone, and emits a very 
unpleasant smell when under the process of cleaning—is not to be 


a 


ENAMELLED FAIENOE, Log 


compared to the more wholesome and agreeable white porcelain. 
Moreover, porcelain so readily adopts every kind of decoration, that if 
a process were invented to endow it with some appearance of ori- | 
ginality, it would quickly regain its original position and the ground 
it has lost. Impressions have been attempted, but without any good 
results. The application of chromo-lithographed paper has been tried, 
but the paper was burnt, or at least it became shrivelled in the baking, 
for the colours adhered to it; and even then, the regularity of the 
design became monotonous. A trial, however, has lately been made, 
which seems to solve that problem of modern times which stands in the 
way of all industrial art—namely, to produce much, quickly, cheaply 
and well. The designing of a certain number of types or models has 
been entrusted to an intelligent artist; either flowers, leaves, or birds. 
When these are drawn, they are firmly engraved with aquafortis, care 
being taken to make the outlines and veinings sharp and distinct ; 
then these marks and outlines will become printed upon the plate, 
and the intervals filled in with a brush by ordinary workmen. By 
this means artistic forms may be obtained, as well as bold masses of 
colour. 

Between “ Fayence,” of which we have treated lengthily, because 
it occupies one of the most important places in the classification of 
decorative arts, and the stone-ware which Zeigler latterly attempted 
to bring into vogue, we must not omit to place pipe-clay (terre de pipe). 

The most noticeable groups were modelled in Alsace and Lorraine, 
the provinces producing the greatest variety of plastic clay. As 
early as 1721, Charles Hannong, whose mark we here re- 

- produce, attempted to establish a factory of hard porcelain ) 

at Strasbourg. He was a pipe-maker. He was the founder , 
of a line of Ceramists at Haguenau. The factory of Nider- M 
viller, which was founded by Monsieur de Beyerlé, Governor 

of the Mint at Strasbourg, stamped its initials on every group it 
turned out, however small, in imitation of the por- 

celain of Saxony. Later on it was purchased by 

General de Custine, and we see the date 1774 pre- 

ceded by two C’s interlaced. This factory employed | 
the sculptors Lemire and Cyfflé; to the latter the ‘ 
town of Nancy owes the large allegorical figures 

of the fountains on the Place Stanislas; he, too, it was, who at 


124 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Lunéville, in 1768, started a manufactory which entirely superseded 
the royal factory already existing in that town. The great pieces of 
biscuit ware, by Cyfflé, are composed with much taste, executed with 
neatness, and modelled with a paste of extreme whiteness, firmness, and 
smoothness. He has not bequeathed the secret. Pounded bones are 
among other ingredients of the composition. On the pedestals they 
are stamped “Terre de Lorraine.” Cyfilé’s establishment was destroyed 
in the wars of the Revolution. He was born at Bruges in 1724, and 
he died, in great misery and neglect, in Belgium, in 1806. His smaller 
groups for the most part represent little scenes of loye-making or 
lovers’ quarrels, in which bold huntsmen and innocent shepherdesses 
play the chief parts. Their colouring is of light pink and light blue, of 
a tender and delicate hue, artistically distributed. The Museum of 
Cluny possesses a pretty specimen, of a cobbler, who is sitting at work 
in his shop, while he talks to a blackbird, which hops gaily in his cage 
above him. = 

The potteries of that part of the country still possess the moulds of 
some of these figures and groups, easy to use, but difficult to repair 
and glaze so as to deceive the expert amateur. As they are handed 
over to the public without any special mark, it may well be imagined 
how many a dealer has presented and sold them for originals. The 
manufactory still make vases, candelabra, flower-stands, and pots, in the 
Louis XVI. style, decorated with wreaths of flowers, or medallions 
suspended by bows of ribbon. Let this be a warning to our readers 
to procure them for a moderate price at the place where they are 
made, rather than in an old curiosity shop, where for a single piece 
one is asked the price that would purchase a whole set.* 

With regard to the clay used for modelling tobacco pipes, more 
porous, but less highly glazed, than that of which the groups just 
mentioned are composed, Macpherson, in his “ Annals of Commerce,” 
relates a curious anecdote: “A factory, established in Flanders, gave 
great offence to the Dutch, who could only hope to succeed in ruining 
it by a great importation on their own account; but the duty set upon 
such articles was so high, that they had to renounce the expedient 
and try other means. To this end they chartered and filled a large 


* In the “Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité,’ was published, in 1865, a list of 
the moulds which still exist at Saint-Clément: the Bélisaire, the Shoemaker, the 
Paris Street Criers, the Pleasant Lesson, the Leda, Venus and Adonis, &c., &c. 


—— 


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STONE WARE, 


GOURD FOR THE DECORATION OF A SIDEBOARD—OF GERMAN 


Page 124. 


(Sauvageot Collection.) 


ENAMELLED FAIENOE. me 


ship with pipes, and sent it to hug the coast of Ostend. According 
to the laws of the country the cargo was seized and sold, but at so 
low a cost, that the rival establishment was thrown out of work for. - 
the space of two years.” 

In Germany and the northern provinces of France, Ceramic stone- 
ware dates from a high antiquity. They seem to be peculiar to 
countries where beer is consumed, in which case the drinker does 
not care to observe the transparency of the liquid; but there is a 
certain charm in perceiving the rising froth, lightly tinged with 
topaz colour over the edges, which leaves long traces on the grey 
sides of a Nuremberg canette. ‘The English and Flemish _beer- 
pots date from the sixteenth century. ‘They are still rude and coarse 
im shape and decoration, and cannot approach the later productions of 
France and Holland. This is a branch in the dominions of curiosity 
that has never yet been perused or studied by the connoisseur, but 
which is very deserving of close observation. ‘There are in Belgium 
and Germany and at Baden great amateurs of decorated stone-ware, 
but in France we can refer to no important series, except those of 
the museums Sauvageot and Cluny. Nearly all these pieces bear 
the arms of old German families, and the dates and monograms of 
the potters. 

The most celebrated collection of stone-ware in yellow, white, grey, 
blue, lilac, and brown, which has yet been made was that of Monsieur 
Huyvetter, of Ghent: at his sale, in 1846, certain of these gourds or 
jugs exceeded the sum of 2,500 francs. They were evidently intended 
for the sideboards of mansions and palaces, and generally bore coats of 
arms, mottoes, or sacred subjects. Sometimes the rich gentry ordered 
them on the occasion of a wedding or a birth. This method of con- 
verting furniture and household utensils into family records, on which 
devolve the duty of preserving and making mention of the greater 
and more important incidents of a lifetime, is touching, and we regret 
that it has fallen so entirely into disuse. 

Like all objects of antiquity, the German and Flemish stone-ware 
haye been the objects of imitation, all the more formidable because they 
are compositions which donot well adapt themselves to varied colours, 
so that a well-made mould can turn out the most deceiving copies. 
The pseudo-antique stone-ware of this period chiefly comes from 
Mayence. 


“8 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


France, and especially Beauvais and Savignies, have produced some 
admirable kinds of stone-ware, for the most part covered with a rich 
leaden glaze of green, or chestnut-brown. Some dishes, more 
especially, have been made there which represent scenes of the 
passion of our Lord, upon a groundwork of fleur-de-lys. In 1515, 


qu 
Se 


i Wail 
"| NVA | pet 


VASES AND JUGS IN STONEWARE. 
(From Ziegler’s factory at Voisin-Lieu.) 


some of these were presented to Francis 1, on his accession to the 
throne, and the custom of offering them to crowned heads continued 
to be in fashion until the seventeenth century, whenever any chanced 
to pass through Beauvais. It is a strong and noble-looking ware. 


* 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE. i227 


The magnificent green glaze with which they cover the oil jars in 
Provence, might be employed advantageously at the present day. 

England exports into France a peculiar sort of water-jug, of a very 
simple form, covered with a varnish of a tint between that of putty 
and of burnt bread. They form charming objects, full of colour, for 
the decoration of country tables, when placed among baskets of flowers 
or fruit ; water is kept cool longer in them than in glass bottles. 

Ziegler, in 1839, founded a manufactory of stone-ware at Voisin- 
lieu, a place not far from Beauvais. He was a talented painter, and 
one who had studied the subject theoretically and profoundly. He 
published a work of great interest, in which too much space is afforded 
to classifications, but it contains, nevertheless, very original views on 
Ceramic art as a whole. His special manufacture was little appreciated 
by the public, and we believe that it ceased altogether in 1856. He, 
however, produced some very interesting models in a really modern 
style; which are now very much sought after. Their colour is of a 
warm yellow tint, that shines out brilliantly when the vase is filled 
with foliage or flowers. For the cabinets of a 
gallery, or the tables of a mansion, we could not 
select from among modern productions anything 
more ornamental, and truly decorative, than those 
cornucopiz wreathed with ivy and other creeping 
plants. 

They are French, and of our time, and their 
boldness of outline will long save them from that oblivion sooner or 
later the fate of all pastiches. 

It is with this feeling of sympathy for an attempt which deserved a 
better and more brilliant success, that we will bring our rapid sketch 
of Ceramic art to a close. Ziegler, like many other artists, had but 
one fault, but it was an irremediable one—that of not belonging to 
the time in which he lived. 


. 
$ 
‘ 


Is there a god of porcelain in China ?—Date of the discovery of porcelain in China— 
Component elements—In the hands of Chinese Ceramists the form of every material 
substance may be imitated in porcelain—Mythology, love of nature, gardens, 
poetry—The Chinese are the most skilful imitators in the world—Classification in 
groups (families)—Difficulty of distinguishing the products of China from those of 
Japan. pe 

The Japanese—They imitate and surpass the Chinese—Sham Japanese and Chinese 
porcelain fabricated in Paris—Indian porcelain of the eighteenth century, and of 
modern times. 

Introduction of Oriental porcelain into Europe—The Medici succeed in imitating it— 
Attempt of the alchemist Bottger in Saxony—<Accident reveals to him a bed of 
kaolin—The manufactories of Meissen and of Dresden—Attempts of Claude 
Révérend and of Louis Poterat in France—-The manufacture of St. Cloud, and of 
Chantilly—Distinctive sign-marks of the most interesting manufactories of Germany 
and France—Seyres established—Discovery of a bed of kaolin at St. Yrieix— 
Influence of Sevres in Europe—The Fontenoy vases—The ink-stand of Marie 
Antoinette—Enormous prices—Temporary decadence—Forgeries— How to create 
a Renaissance — The Céladon plaques of M. Solon — Printed. decoration — Con- 
clusion, 


Ds. eee 2 Ves, i eat i= 


a | 


iA 


PORCELAIN. 


Supposine it were legitimate to pay divine honours to the man who 
invented porcelain, China would enjoy that privilege. A Jesuit mis- 
sionary (le Pere d’Entrecolles) has left us curious notes upon China 
at the period of the commencement of the last century. He relates 
that one of the Emperors issued an order for various porcelains to be 
made of a certain description. It was vainly represented to him that 


the thing was impossible; in vain the officers of the court charged to 


superintend the works exerted both the zeal and the imagination of 
the artists employed by the agency of coups de rotin. At last one 
of these unfortunate artists, seized with despair, plunged into the 
furnace, and was immediately consumed. Miuraculously enough, it 
resulted therefrom that the baking proved successful, and the piece 
of porcelain came out of the furnace such as the oblique-eyed Nero 
had dreamed it. They could hardly do less than make a hero, a demi- 
god of this martyr. Alas, the savans of our time, who have no pre- 
dilections for legends, have discerned in the laughing, lusty, poussah 
handed down to us as the porcelain god, Pou-Tai, the God of “ Perfect 
Satisfaction.” 

Our modern sinologues have, moreover, brought far nearer to our 
time the date of the invention of porcelain, which one fancied to be 
lost in a fabulous antiquity. According to M. Stanislas Julien, the 
date is hardly a century anterior to the Christian era. It must be 
understood that this date does not particularly apply to other than the 
kaolin paste. 

K 2 


132 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


The Ceramic productions generally, in baked earth or in sandstone, 
are excepted. The boccaro, for instance, which is a Ceramic ware of 
an extremely fine and light paste, brown, red, or chocolate colour, 
frequently bears a very antique stamp. But the pieces of porcelain of 


which, by the aid of historic personages, or of emblems in the exterior 


decorations, the period has been ingeniously identified, are certainly 
not to be traced back further than our middle ages. 

Let us proceed to show what it is that porcelain is composed of, 
following the investigations of MM. Ebelmen and Salvetat, who have 
analysed the raw material of it, forwarded to them direct from China.” 


In Europe, as in the Flowery Kingdom, the gross kaolins are first : 


subject to a thorough washing, to eliminate the argillaceous matter, 
which is subsequently mixed with quartzose and felspath sands, 
reduced to a fine powder by repeated crushing and washing. ‘The 
Chinese kaolins, like those of Europe, evidently result from the dis- 
integration and decomposition of rock-granite ; the body of the paste 
is formed of it. The pe-twn-tzé, the vitreous portion surrounding the 
white nucleus, which should be streaked and, as it were, spongy, 
is of compact felspar, or petrosilex. The Chinese paste and glaze 
are infinitely more fusible than those of our porcelains, and con- 
sequently bake at a lower temperature. Hveryone knows that it 
is by its translucency that porcelain is distinguished from enamelled 
faience, by the perfect homogeneity of the external glaze and the 
internal structure, and of a hardness surpassing that of flint-stone. 
It will bear, for household purposes, the action of boiling water 
or fire without cracking. After being washed in clean, warm water, 
it retains no greasy particles. It will resist the corrosive properties 
of the strongest chemical substances, with the single ieee of 
hydrofluoric acid. 

In all probability it was originally designed for an imitation of jade, 


the species of vitreous stone, small specimens of which may be gathered — 
in China in the beds of rivers. Jade will chip steel, and if—as we — 


are led to suspect, by the multitude of pieces of this stone which have 
found their way to Kurope—the workmen have not arrived at some 
particular method of softening its compact substance, the formation 
of a vase, or group, can hardly have failed to demand the unremitting 
labour of a man’s life. ‘Confucius regarded it as the emblem of all 
virtues. Nothing is more natural than that the potters, who, in this 


a oe 


ir ee Se ee 


oe 
fe 


PORCELAIN. 133 


ancient and meditative land, had attained to a marvellous skilfulness, 
should have been led to produce the fac-simile of a gem of such 
great price. Kaolin came to their aid. In French and in Dutch © 
commercial phrase of the present day, the stamp of the letter F 
stands for a Chinese sign that resembles the European form of the 
letter. It signifies in Chinese, yw— jade—and may be found 
stamped under tolerably modern pieces, but which are of a superior 
quality. In China, they cite among their most remarkable curiosities 
certain pieces produced for one of the Emperors in the year 600, 
by a celebrated potter named Tha-yu, and called “vases of imita- 
tion jade.” The story of the white swallow, pervading all Chinese 
romances, is mixed up with the jade-stone. The Emperor Han-vou-ti 
received visits from a fairy in his palace of Tchaoting. One day she 
forgot to take away a pin of jade that she chanced to have withdrawn 
from her coiffure. The emperor presented it to his chief favourite, 
Fey-yen. Later, during the reign of his successor, this magical jewel 
was discovered by the women of the palace, who, frightened at what 
they deemed its supernatural splendour, resolved, after a night spent 
in anxious consultation, to destroy it. But when they opened the 
box, where they had enclosed it on the previous day, out flew a white 
swallow, that disappeared like a flash in the deep blue sky. 

The Chinese Ceramists succeeded beyond all possible expectation. 
Of porcelain they made a really magical substance, that received every 
form, every gradation of colour, submitted to every caprice; and we 
have proof that the decorative taste and imitative skill of the artists 
of the Celestial Empire knows no limit. You see, for example, the 
dog “Fo,” bearded, moustached, curly as a spaniel, daubed red and 
green, opening his jaws, at the threshold of temples and gardens, 
thrusting out his tongue, and showing his teeth; or, it is a carp. and 
carplings, intertwisted, with distended gills, in the thick of a clump of 
reeds; or a garden rat is biting into a peach; a toad, with his bulged 
back, is crawling up the involuted roots of a bamboo; and here, a 
nélumbo flower (water-lily) spreads out in full bloom, forming a cup, of 
which the tea-pot is so constructed, that while not only have its move- 
able rings been carved out of the mass, but the parts are concen- 
trical and revolve upon themselves, leaving us to wonder how the ad- 
herence could possibly have been prevented in the baking. This cup 
has been laid over again with a fresh coat of lacquer, and this bowl is 


134 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


as delicately fine and pearly as the eggshell of a turtle-dovye. And here, 
the origin of the vast superiority of the Chinese potters over ours is, 
that they start always with a more or less free, more or less capricious 
imitation of some natural production. The object, however peculiar its 
outline may be, will invariably suggest to the mind a close or remote 
affinity with a real object. The flowers and the fruits, the grubs and 
the monsters, the clouds and the waves, the lightnings, the rain, the 
clipped tree-trunks, the empty shells—nothing has seemed to them 
undeserving of study; and from this incessant simple observation of 
the caprices and the functions of life and nature, as well as of living 
creatures and phenomena, they have been able to refresh their imagi- 
nations with countless delicate subtleties. 3 

There are Chinese figures as pure as the purest of those bequeathed 
to us by the Greeks, notably such as are of the extreme antique 
period. If, occasionally, they distress us, the fault lies in our classical 
education, which has armed us against every manifestation of life, 
colour, and movement: at any rate, we are bound to render them this 
justice, that, even in their commonest productions, they excel by far the 
imitation of Greek and Latin types which the Western nations repeat 
so laboriously. The interminable variations upon the Medici vase | 
afflicting us in France since the triumph of Italian Renaissance, the 
stolid persistency of our artists in introducing the human figure, either 
as a support or as a relief in the ornamentation, are afflictions that 
have ceased to strike attention, because our eyes are absolutely wearied 
by what surrounds us. Is it not, let us ask, infinitely less interesting 
and less reasonable than the direct imitation, never mind how inde- 
pendent or fantastical, of the wonders of nature ? 

We are not desirous of pushing beyond just limits our aeien 
of a people separated from us by so many points of origin, antiquity, 
philosophy, and climate. The Chinese have a tendency towards the. 
monstrous and the distorted, which the colder, more critical European 
finds distasteful. What pleases them best is the broken outline; 
they are delighted by the curved line; their doors and their windows — 
are round; the angle of the ten roofs capping the famous Tower of 
Porcelain, which the rebels destroyed some years since, is curved like 
the nail of the little finger of a first-class lettered mandarin. One 
would absolutely expect their architects to cavil in Paris at the cold 
and heavy outlines of the Madeleine. | 


PORCELAIN. 135 


To the Chinese, far more justly than to the Japanese, MM. de 
Goncourt should have addressed this highly-coloured paragraph of 
their last book: “Out there you have the monster everywhere. He 
is the favourite ornament, almost the fashionable furniture of the 
season. He is the flower-stand, the perfume-burner. The potter, the 
worker in bronze, the designer, the embroiderer, bring him face to 
face with you at every turn. He grimaces, lifts his wrathful nails 
even on the fashionable dress of the day. For this pale race of 
women, with painted eyelids, the monster is the habitual, familiar, 
beloved, if not loving, image, just as the statuette on the chimney- 
piece is for us.” This monster, however, is nearly always a sacred 
animal; the marvellous horse which issued from the river before the 
eyes of the philosophic law-giver, Ifou-hi, bearing on his back the 
eight mystical characters; the Fong-hoang, the immortal bird that 
was the royal coat of arms of the ancient dynasties, and for which, as 
imperial symbol, the dragon with five claws has more recently been 
substituted; the Ki-lin, a quadruped whose body is covered with 
scales, with a branching head, so gentle that he swerves in his 
fleetest course to avoid crushing a worm; the dragon, spirit of air 
and of the mountains, upon whom the Emperor Hoang-ti, together 
with seventy faithful followers, was raised to heaven, while numbers 
of the remaining courtiers endeavoured to hold on by the beard-tufts 
of the sacred reptile, but the hairs came out, and they fell heavily to 
the earth. And who shall say that these beasts, which our exhausted 
earth was incapable of nourishing any longer, did never paw the 
slime, press the ground, cleave the floods, fly through the lightnings 
of the ancient world? Who is there shall declare that our ancestors 
spoke falsely, and that the strongly excited imaginations of the primi- 
tive races of the earth have not transmitted to us traditions comprising 
general features of extinct monsters? Science, which resuscitates on 
one hand what it slays on the other, has managed in these later years 
to reconstruct more than one fabulous animal. Up till recently, for 
example, the épiornis (the great Roc) was accounted to have flown in 
no other sky than that of the “Arabian Nights.” If the shell of one 
of its eggs, big as a bomb, and a thigh-bone of the bird, solid as an 
oar, had not been discovered by lucky accident, we should still have 
grave and learned men doubting the truth of the story of that mira- 
culous bird. | 


136 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


The more earnestly we contemplate the genius of the Chinese in 
their ceramics and bronzes, the more we have been enabled by the 
narratives of travellers to become acquainted with their domestic life, 
and have read the translations of their dramatic works, their romances 
and poetry, the deeper is the interest we feel in this aged, melancholy 
people, who seem, after an interminable succession of centuries, to 
have exhausted every combination in mind, arts, and crafts. This 
race was altogether the best endowed, the strongest, the most patient, 
the most inquisitive of all that forsook the flats of India to colonize 
Asia. Doubtless, its misfortune was to have aged in utter isolation, 
without suffering those perpetual invasions of the barbarians which 
made Europe rejuvenescent. The spirit of Greece, of Rome, and of 
the Northern races, battling together and successively displaced one 
by the other, have, in the end, formed that of the Huropean,—a cha- 
racter complex and sonorous as the piece of metal gathered after the 
burning of the Byzantine palaces, and which was composed of a 
hundred metallic varieties. But the Chinese, on the contrary, have 
always absorbed their conquerors. 

How they love Nature! It is true that they subject her to the 
pleasure of their fantastic will, by decorating their apartments with 
oaks a foot high and peaches no bigger than nuts; yet with what 
ardour they pour forth in spring-time to enjoy the odours of flowering 
apricots and nélumbos! Such of their romances as have been trans- 
lated into French,* “The Two Cousins,” “The Two Fairy Snakes,” 
“The Accomplished Young Ladies,” are full of those happy gatherings 
which friends appoint to make at the return of bright weather, when 
the interchange of poetical couplets and quatrains enlivens the cup of 
sake, 

A root of a species of peony will fetch at Peking more than £8. 
Their gardens were the model for English gardeners in the eighteenth 
century ; and from this period we may date the decline of those par- 
terres naked to the sun, and of the surrounding box-wood cut in the 
form of a moustache-brush. Captain Negroni, a French officer ac- 
companying the expedition to China, who has brought back numerous 
articles of value from that country, thus describes the gardens of the 
Summer Palace, reduced to ashes by the’ Western barbarians :— 

“The gardens were magical: you beheld gentle slopes covered with 

* Translated by M. Stanislas Julien, 


PORCELAIN. 137 


flowering trees, with valleys between them, through which wound 
artificial rivers, and here and there were basins of limpid water. You 
passed along devious gravel walks and high circling galleries, by - 
clumps of thicket, and perpetually curving pathways, interrupted 
by groves of flowers, coming now and then on kiosks of variegated 
tiles and rock-bordered rivers, crossed by bridges beautiful with carved 
balustrades, and the vast dragons, the symbols of imperial power ; 
and in the centre of all was a lake of an immense extent, where a 
rocky island uprose, with a charming pavilion on it.” 

From nature, and not from dubious experimental combinations of 
the laboratories, the Chinese have drawn their unrivalled colours: 
they have violet of the melongena (the mad-apple), the scarlet- 
runners red, the pure, deep, milky-white of the petals of the 
camellia, the emerald’s green, and gold-veined lapis-lazuli. One of 
their Emperors desired them to render the effect of that evanescent 
“blue of heaven after showers,” when the azure of the sky is still 
partly veiled by lingering vapours, and they have succeeded in ex- 
pressing it so far as to discourage our great landscape painter, Corot 
himself. You see a porcelain vase that you take for bronze; another 
. you will conceive to be a piece of goldsmith’s work. Attentive to the 
smallest details of their business, these workmen have been inspired 
to benefit by the occurrence of any slight accident and gain extra- 
ordinary effects from it. Observe the cracks running over some of 
these vases, like the meshes of a fisherman’s net, im parts marked 
delicately as the back of a trout, and again regularly as the channel 
lines of a honey-cake. This must necessarily spring from a want of 
homogeneity in the body and the glaze covering the so-called Céladon 
vases: the greater contraction of the interior caused the surface- 
coating to split with a thousand little lines. The veined or mottled 
colours (flambé) are caused by jets of heat—for the atmosphere of the 
kiln is so incandescent we cannot talk of flame—which attack certain 
portions of the coating of the piece, and, by this greater degree of 
heat, modifies the tone or colour of the mineral element with which it 
is decorated. Upon this head, M. Jacquemart, who has the most 


earnestly studied Oriental art, and can therefore discourse the best on 


it, says: “The scarlet coating attains an imcomparably picturesque 
aspect: the surface is diapered with veined, flickering, capricious hues, 
like the flame of a bowl of punch; the red oxydule passes out of violet 


138 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


to pale blue, and to green protoxide, evaporating altogether im par- 
ticular pieces whitened by the fiery ordeal, and thus furnishing happy 
strokes not accorded to the brush of the painter.” 

These lovely interfused tints of violet, turquoise blue, and green, 
which the designed and cunningly-concealed inequality of thickness 
in the decoration causes to vibrate deeply, and, as it were, to palpitate, 
are attributed to the most ancient manufactories, and are ardently 
sought after. At the sale at Ferol, in March, 1863,-a diminutive 
ovoid urn, eleven centimetres (about eight or nine inches) in height, the 
brim swollen out in a thick cushiony edge, entirely enamelled in green 
camellia leaves, with large crackles, fetched the sum of £48 4s. (1205 — 
francs). It forms now part of the collection of M. H. Barbet de 
Jouy, and would fetch double the money. More recently, a carp and 
its carplings, enamelled in intense violet, exceeded £120 (8000 francs). 


STAND OF A CHINESE VASE OF CARVED WOOD, 


In the middle of the eighteenth century, a grotesque, without its 
fellow, in turquoise blue, was sold for not less than £340. 

As far as is possible the Chinese of the present day are able to 
perform these marvels of decoration and of baking which distinguish 
the work of their ancestors. ‘The Chinaman’s adeptness of imitation 
approaches to genius. The case of an English captain who upset an 
inkstand on his dress-trousers is well known: he dropped anchor in a 
Chinese port, summoned a tailor, and asked the man if he could pro- 
duce a similar cloth in that country, and make a pair of trousers for 
him out of it. The tailor replied that he could: fifteen days 
after he brought the trousers exactly imitated after the original 
pattern ; so exactly, indeed, that the blot of ink was seit bea ; 
imitated. 

At every period, owing to the high estimation in which old poten 
was held by the Chinese mandaring, forgers have sprung up to imitate 


PORCELAIN. 139 


it. One of their authors relates the following anecdote’ of a 
famous artist, called Tcheou-tan-tsiouen. This worthy chanced to be 
going through Pi-ling, so he bethought him of paying a visit to 
Thang, the President of the Sacrifices, and, when in his presence, 
asked him for permission to make a leisurely examination of an 
ancient porcelain tripod of Ting, which was the ornament of his 
cabinet. He took an exact measure of it with his hand; then, with 
a paper that he squeezed in his sleeve, he obtained an impression of 
the veins of the tripod. Six months afterwards he returned to 
Pi-ling, and again called on the venerable Thang. Drawing a tripod 
from his pocket, “ Your highness,” said he, “ possesses a perfume-pan 
in the form of a tripod, in white porcelain, of Ting: here is one like 
it that I also possess.” Thang was astounded. He compared it with 
the ancient tripod which he preserved religiously, and discovered not 
a hair’s difference between them. He put it on his own stand, and 
placed the cover of his own tripod on it, and perceived that they fitted 
with admirable precision. Then only did Tcheou avow the deception, 
or rather the mystification. It will be conceived that where there are 
such adept imitators, it 1s exceedingly difficult for the expertest of 
Europeans to avoid being led into errors of judgment. 

The Chinese are great collectors, very rich, and very patient. Still, 
the taste for collecting does not seem to be of old date among them ; 
at least, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Dutch 
managed to import very costly pieces into Europe, which they have 
since been seeking after to export back to China. It is stated, that 
when our soldiers had sacked the summer palace, which was at once 
the Louvre, the Versailles, and a magazine of the menu placsirs of 
the Emperors, they found purchasers in the mandarins even of the 
fragments of old porcelain which they had picked up. We know that 
latterly no pieces of any great importance have come to France. 

It is only by long experience, joimed to a sort of natural instinct, 
that one can distinguish that, for instance, pieces of modern manu- 
facture are less sonorous than the ancient. The most ancient pieces 
known at the present day can be traced back no farther than the 
_ Ming dynasty, which flourished in the fourteenth century. The 
_ sign-marks published by several authors, particularly M. Stanislas 
Julien, in his “ History of Chinese Porcelain,” can help us but vaguely, 
and are always dangerous guides. These blue marks, such as a leaf 


140 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


or a square tied with ribbons, are not sign-marks of the manufacture, 


but signify a religious or titular dedication. But of what use at all 
are the marks? In the decorated pieces, these literal, absolute copies 
are always likely to perplex the connoisseur, still there is in the 
costume, the attributes, the subject, the execution, and the repeated 
choice of a theme, sufficient to permit of a general classification. A 
style of decoration made fashionable by ruling influences—political, 


URN, CUP, AND WATER-BOTTLE. 


(Chinese porcelain.) 


philosophical, or literary—would, in a country pre-eminently wedded 
to established forms like this, continue for a long series of years 
to reproduce it as faithfully as we see that Egyptian art has done 
with its hieratic type. | 
These decorations have been divided into groups or “ families.” 
The “Green family” is very easily discernible. Besides being dis- 
tinguished at a glance by a bold rich green, that shows strikingly 
on a rather creamy white paste, the figures presented are mostly 


PORCELAIN. 141 


literati reciting verses, philosophers meditating, or divinities appear- 
ing. Green had been chosen by the Ming dynasty for its livery— 
yellow is the colour of the existing Tartar dynasty—so that in the 
fifteenth century green was naturally in favour. Should you perceive 
a warrior, it will be he of whom the great poet of the dynasty of the 
Thangs (in the year 750 of our era), Li-tai-pé,* has given the salient 
portrait :—“The borderer never has opened a book in his life, but he 
can hunt, he is alert, strong, and hardy. In the autumn, fat is his 
horse, for the grass of his meadows suits him capitally; when he 
gallops he outstrips his shadow. See what a superb and haughty air 
he has! He flicks the snow with his cracking whip, as it rattles in 
its golden case. Full of a generous wine, he calls his falcon and is 
off into the wilderness. Never does that bow of his, rounded by the 
force of his puissant arm, unbend vainly ; struck at one stroke by his 
whistling arrow, often will two birds drop simultaneously. They who 
live on the sea coast make way for him, every one.” 

The “Green family” also has mythological scenes, historical in- 
cidents, scenes of domestic repose peculiar to earlier times, robust types 
of men with wrinkled eyes, high cheekbones, thin flowing beard, and 
cranium bald as a pelican’s. 

If we may be allowed to base a supposition upon instinct, we should 
say that there are a thousand peculiarities which lead us to suspect 
what is called the “ Rose family” to have at least sprung from Japan. 
But we must here confess that it is almost impossible to indicate the 
points of difference between Chinese and Japanese porcelain, except 
that, since the eighteenth century, the latter has been held to be 
the more perfect and better decorated. When the Japanese ambas- 
sadors came lately to France, they seemed astonished that the question 
should: be put to them. ‘They were unable in the Ceramic museum of 
Sevres to identify a single piece, and assured us that no one in their 
country troubled himself with such distinction. Simple Japanese ! 
Sancta simplicitas, who refuse to let enjoyment be directed by 
erudition ! 

The secrets of the art of porcelain were communicated to Japan in 
the spring of the year 27 B.c., from the Corea. The Corea is that 


* Poetry of the epoch of the Thangs, in the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries of 
our era, now first translated from the original Chinese by Marquis d’Hervey Saint- 
Denis. 


142 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


peninsula terminating the Mantchour territory southward, and pushing 
forth like a promontory between the sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea. 
It is to the Corea (which appears destined to serve as an amicable link 
between China and the island of Nipon), that certain porcelain of a 
heavy, ancient look may be referred. Springing from a keen, ardent, 


DISH WITH HERONS. 
(Ancient Japanese porcelain.) 


¥ Se ae 


artistic race, the Japanese are quicker than any other in the world to 
grasp the secrets of manufacture, and stamp on the decoration a sin- 
gular charm and splendour that has certainly never been surpassed. 
‘he most ancient porcelains, they tell us, are distinguishable by the 


mark left underneath by the impression of five or six little pieces of 


PORCELAIN, 143 


paste that supported the plate or dish during the baking. This pecu- 
larity may be observed on the reverse of the dish, ornamented with 
herons, in the accompanying illustration. There is a further detail that . 
the engraver could not render ; in the margin, under the branches and 
gilt leaves spreading between the birds, standing out in relief in the 
paste, there are daisies and chrysanthemums, a flower that is to the 
sovereign prince of this feudal isle what the lily was to our French 
kings. | | 

We must, therefore, do honour to Japan for having, at least origi- 
nally invented the whole of the family in which the rose tint, com- 
monly set off by a field of black, predominates. By turning over the 
leaves of their albums—modern, no doubt, but illustrating in swift 
and vigorous touches the physiognomy of this arch, sperdtuel people— 
we encounter the same subjects which used to delight their ancestors. 
Who has not seen one of those cups, for tea or spirits, with the saucer 
and cover upon which a fine feather-legged cock stands bridling ? And 
those dishes of so thin and transparent a porcelain, that they are 
denominated “ege-shells,” where, in a corner, in contempt of the silly 
notions of symmetry which mislead the European, the artist has 
placed on the branch of a blooming peach-tree a tomtit darting on 
a caterpillar, or a sparrow watching a butterfly ? 

From this group we except only, as not being Japanese, the scenes 
taken from Chinese history and well-known comedies: the amazons 
caracoling in the court-yard of the palace, upon red or rose-tinted 
horses, and those youthful matrons who polish their finger-nails in a 
reverie, while their young ones roll at their feet, or plunge embracing 
amid their petticoats. 

The period of courtly gallantry, which plays a considerable part in 
Japan, where women are less rigorously looked after, had but a short 
term in China towards the year 300 of our era. One of their poets 
then painted this delicious portrait : 

“Oh, the lovely creature! how elegant, how charming she is when 
her hand is stretched out plucking mulberry-leaves by the road side ! 
Her sleeve, slightly drawn back, shows a pure white hand ; her delicate 
wrist is clasped by a golden bracelet; there is a golden sparrow on 
the pin confining her hair; her girdle is ornamented with oblong 
blue stones, that dangle, trembling. She has round her neck a neck- 
lace all of pearls, of higher polish than the jade-stone, held up by 


age" MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


an agrafe of coral and coloured stones. The tight folds of her silken 
dress are exquisitely tortured by the wind. You would think that 
you saw softly floating one of the translucent vapours that are the 
chariots of the immortals. The traveller passing involuntarily checks 
his horse to gaze at her.” ! 

Is it not the image of this fair damsel that we behold on those 
delicate decorations, enamelled in a soft relief of yellow, blue, and 
green pearls, and where the thin fine lines cross and form patterns 
like the finest black lace ? 

We have learnt, since the eighteenth century, to attribute to 
Japanese workmanship the gorgeous dishes where peonies and chry- 
santhemums bloom full face or are distributed in squares, as on a coat 
of arms. It has been said, some pages back, that the decoration of 
the Persians presented a side-view of a garden: that of the Japanese, 
on the contrary, offers the bird’s-eye-view of a flower-bed all but 
foreshortened ; the stakes supporting the stems are almost in aérial 
perspective ; the long winding stretches of blue are brooks, and occa- 
sionally alleys strewn with coloured sands. The imperial tree, the 
paulownia, is frequent here, flower or leaf. 

To arrive at an opinion upon the delicate subject of classification, — 
and in order to feel the differences existing in the powers of expression 
of the two peoples, one must compare the album paintings on rice 
paper of the Chinese with the albums printed in colours of the — 
Japanese. The albums of the Chinese are drawn with a laborious, 
embarrassed hand, significant in the execution displayed of their pro- 
verbial reputation for patience. Those of the Japanese, on the other 
hand, are printed in bold vivid tints, that leave our oily, yellow and 
dull chromo-lithographs far behind. The sketches are of inexhaustible 
variety: there are warriors, with helmets bearing stag-horns at the 
temples, and beetle antennze at the front; slender women, done all in 
white, with black-stained eyebrows and mouth of carmine, pms of 
lacquered wood thick in their hair, crowned with wreaths of chrysan- 
themums and gold paper, reading verses, turning over the leaves of 
albums. Then there are tragic scenes, troops disembarking, tempests, 
fights, conflagrations, landscapes, purple under the setting sun; the 
apparition of divinities, amidst clouds or yapours of the lake; gather- 
ings on palace-terraces, to the sound of music and sweet voices. The 
most curious series of all is that of the twenty-eight portfolios of the 


Varese 
>. 


AY YS) 


VASE, EWER, AND DISH. 
(Japanese Porcelain.) 


Page 144, 


* 


146 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Oriental porcelain. The manufacturer, undoubtedly, in this manner 
preserves his honourable name; yet one would imagine that he might 
render the imposture somewhat more difficult by impressing the stamp 
of his house in the paste. No one could take these imitations for the 
finest Oriental pieces; it is easy, however, to confound them with 
others of the second order. Nevertheless, the paste is dull and em- 
browned ; the narrow red line surrounding the birds and the flowers 
is dry, the flowers are insipid, and the gold badly laid on. Curious 
as are these counterfeits, from an industrial point of view, they are 
severely to be blamed for their perversion of the public taste in teach- 
ing it to admire unworthy copies to the detriment of our national 
productions. , 

Before quitting these countries, which gave birth to one of the 
most precious inventions of man, and, as is generally the case in such 
instances, saw it reach its highest point of perfection, we may as well 
explain what was meant in the eighteenth century by “Indian porce- 
lain,” and what is still understood by the words “porcelain of the 
India Company.’ Agents in Jeddo, the capital of Nipon, receive 
orders for whole ship-loads, and they, in turn, give their orders to a 
number of petty manufacturers. The result, in French commercial 
phrase, is a collection of “trumpery,’ for the fatal consequences of 
competition and useless diffusion, and possibly of cheapness too, are 
everywhere the same, and lead to a degradation of taste notably in 
the spirit of invention. Up to this period Japan was free from the 
mechanical repetition of work which is carried in China as far as it 
will go. There, every workman, through the whole course of his life, 


is condemned to produce one distinct article—he paints the garments, — 
or the flesh, or the trees, or the clouds, and this is a law of imitation — 
and devout respect for the ancient types; we see traces of itm their 


poetry, surcharged with allusions and pastiche reproduction. The 
Japanese have incontestably the livelier fancy and the quicker hand ; 
but now, when the merchant-captain gives orders for 10,000 vases of 
No. 12 pattern, and 15,000 dinner-services of No. 25 pattern, the 
whole to be delivered in the shortest time possible, and at the lowest 
price, what is the result? Modern Japan gives us nothing but flimsy 
decorations and China trashy copies. 

Indian porcelain of the eighteenth century was an European com- 
mercial production, executed in Japan, and, curiously enough, Europe 


; 


PORCELAIN. 147 


generally supplied the models. The paste of the wash-hand basin in 
the shape of a shell, and of the helmet-shaped ewer which we have. 
had copied, is of a bluish colour, much like the blue starch used by: 
Jaundresses, and the blue decoration is devoid of sharp outline. The 


Se eee STA 


BASIN AND HELMET-SHAPED EWER. _ 
(Indian porcelain, eighteenth century.) 


Jesuit fathers, and intermediary commercial Dutch, undertook, during 

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to get arms, and crests, and 

mottoes stamped on the dinner and toilette services. Both to the 
L 2 


148 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Chinese and the Japanese, engravings after Watteau or Chardin, or 
German masters, such as Nilson, were brought, and they, with the 
most grotesque of pencils, executed scenes from “'The Geese of Father 
Philip,” “The Story of Telemachus and Calypso,” “The Prodigal Son, 4 
&c. Nothing could be sadder. 

The exact period of the introduction of Oriental porcelain into 
Europe is unknown. There is a tacit consent to recognize them in 
those murrhine vases—so ardently prized by the wealthy Romans, 
that Nero gave three hundred talents for one—although the text of 
Pliny may designate a different substance. For us it cannot be 
doubtful that Greek Ceramic Art was inspired by that of the East— 
Persian, Indian, or Chinese. Thus the little ornament running in 
the form of what is called a “Greek” frieze, is found on Chinese 
works of high antiquity; the waves of the sea are rendered by sets of 
purely conventional intervalved lines, which are the same as those on 
the Greek vases. Owing to the extreme difficulty of communication 
between the two countries, by means of caravans, these porcelains 
were necessarily precious, and their fragility made them very rare. 

The narrative of the voyages and travels of Marco Paulo, printed for 
Charles, the father of Philippe le Bel, in 1484, from a manuscript 
written in 1307, created a lively interest in the objects mentioned by 
him, of which specimens were already extant ; but it is not before the 
fifteenth century that we discover in the inventory of royal and 
princely treasures an enumeration of pieces of porcelain. Up to that 
period, according to M. Laborde, whose erudition may be trusted, the 
term “ porcelain ” in the lists signified mother-of-pearl. 

With what admiration must our western virtuosi have welcomed 
these vases brought over from far countries; “the enamel as luminous 
as the finest crystal,” capable of withstanding the heat of fire, and 
fashioned to resist both the indentation of the fork and the edge of 
the carving-knife! The testimony of Passeri has been cited, to show 
how rapidly these vases and plates caused the faience on the sideboards 
of Italy to be forgotten. It was the same everywhere. ‘The dauphin, 


son of Louis XIV., collected pieces of exceptional beauty, as regards 


substance, size, and decoration, for his cabinet, and the example was 
followed by the bourgeoisie. In the middle of the eighteenth century, 
within the space of a single year, teacups, “ brown and blue,” to the 
number of 307,318, entered Holland. At the Due d’Aumont’s sale, 


ee 


PORCELAIN. | 149 


in 1782, vases, of a shape swelling heavily from centre to pediment, 
and round perfume-pans, in old Japanese ware, fetched 7000 and as | 
much as 7501 livres (£375 1s.) the pair. 

The seventeenth century savans pronounced their opinion of the 
composition of porcelain thus: that it was a “conglomeration of 
plaster, eggs, the scales of sea-beasts, and others of a similar species ; 
which substances, being well mixed and stuck together, was secretly 
buried in the earth by the father of the family, who informed none 
but his children thereof; and that it remained hidden for a space of 
fourscore years, and after this period the inheritors dug it up, and, 
finding it ripe for its purpose, made of it the costly, transparent vases, 
so beautiful to the eye in form and colour, that no single artificer had 
a word to say against it.” 

Finally, in the midst of a society where poison played so terrible a 
part, doctors of medicine, anxious to shelter themselves behind pre- 
judices that relieved them of their responsibility, agreed, without dis- 
cussion, that bowls of porcelain, equally with tortoise-shell cups, and 
horns of the unicorn and rhinoceros, gave warning of the presence of 
poison. “This fact is satisfactorily proved,” wrote a commentator on 
Pancirol, in a letter to Simon Simonius, physician to Maximilian, 
Archduke of Austria. The letter accompanied a piece of porcelain, 
sent from Prague to Leipsic, from Simonius to his well-beloved son-in- 
law. “They found it,” he continues, “among the treasures of the 
Pasha of Buda, now a prisoner in Vienna. It is in these kinds of 
vases that the Turks drink water (sorbets) and take their soup, for it is 
believed that a sudden clouding of the transparency indicates the 
presence of poison. I would not exchange it for a vase in silver of 
equal weight, for I believe the substance to be pure and undebased : 
I have the guarantee for its excellence in the fact that a chief so 
powerful as the pasha has thought fit to make use of it.” 

Efforts were expended on all sides to imitate it; but kaolin, the 
primary element of porcelain, was wanting to the Ceramists. Will it 
be credited ? The family of the Medici, whose sensibility to the arts 
was so great, and who protected them so royally, penetrated the secret 
in the middle of the sixteenth century, and -lost it—owing, no doubt, 
to that craft-jealousy peculiar to the times. In the felazone of 
Andrea Gucconi, despatched to the court of Florence from Venice in 
1576, to offer Duke Frances, son of Cosmo I., the complimentary 


150 MASTERPIECEKS OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


condolences of the Republic, we read: “The prince takes little 


pleasure in the chase, or in other fatiguing exercises, but all his 


occupation is to further the development of certain crafts, im which — 


he professes to have found and invented new processes, as in fact is 
the case. He has discovered the method of making Indian porcelain, 
and succeeds in all his essays to rival its qualities, that is to say, the 
transparency, the baking, and he makes it quite as light and as deli- 
cate. I am told that it cost him ten years to discover the secret of it. 
A Levantine put him on the track. He then had a man to make 
experiments every day. He spoilt thousands of pieces before he 
managed to produce a perfect example.” 


ARMS OF THE HOUSE OF MEDICI, 


Specimens of this porcelain have come down to us. It was not 
“hard” porcelain, like the Oriental, but “soft ;” that is, of a erystal- 
line frit composition kneaded with white, clayey earth, which is not 
kaolin. These: precious specimens have for the most part found 
their way into the collections of the Rothschild family. A landscape 
painter, M. Jules Michelin, an amateur of refined taste, whose dis- 
interestedness cannot be too highly praised, has presented to the 
Ceramic Museum of Sevres a square, narrow-necked bottle, which 


PORCELAIN. 151 


shows, by its argillaceous texture, that it was still some way off per- 
fection. ‘The decoration is in blue camaieu, with a sort of manganese 
violet line. On one face of the bottle the arms of Philip IL, with the 
collar of the golden fleece and the crown, are borne in a rich 
escutcheon. Grotesques peep out there from among quaint flowers 
and foliage. It is probable that, as in the Oiron faiences, the manu- 
facture was limited to a supply of Royal and princely presents. 

The letter F stamped on the reverse of some of the pieces is the 
initial of Firenze (Florence), and the dome is that of Santa Maria della 
Fiore, of Florence ; the six pattini, or small balls, bearing the initials, 
are the fundamental parts of the Medici escutcheon. 

The discovery of these first attempts to manufacture porcelain is of 
recent date; it in no way detracts from the merit of Saxony in having 


MARKS OF THE MEDICI PORCELAINS, 


popularized the process, and discovered the true substance ; the story 
of which is highly romantic. 

John Frederick Béttger was born in Vogtland, in 1682. His father 
was an ardent seeker for the philosopher's stone. ‘The son followed in 
the steps of his father, and took service with an old apothecary of 
Berlin, by name Zorn, who was himself casting looks of courtship at 
Mistress Alchemy. The King of Saxony, Frederick Augustus, Elector 
and King of Poland, excited by the young man’s reputation, sought to 
take possession of him exclusively, and when Béttger had been 
brought back, after an attempted flight into the territory of the King 
of Prussia, Frederick Augustus shut him up in the Castle of Witten- 


152 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


berg, and placed over him Ehrenfried Walther de Tschirnhauss, who, 
himself a chemist, had also studied mineralogy. ‘This latter person, 
at the apparition of porcelain, had done his best to imitate it, but had 
produced nothing better than milky glass. For the composition of 
Bottger’s crucibles, Tschirnhauss supplied him with the most refrae- 
tory clays. He furnished him with the elements of very hard pottery, 
having all the qualities of porcelain, except its translucency. 

Great was the joy in the laboratory! To prevent any whisper of 
the hopes of the two collaborateurs from getting abroad, the king had a 
laboratory built for them in the Albrechtsburg at Meissen. ‘Touching 
solicitude! A Royal recompense for all the success hitherto obtained. ' 

Tschirnhauss died in 1708, and did not live to witness his associate's 
success, after a thousand disappointments, in producing his red stone= 
ware pottery, called “red porcelain.” It had no luminousness, and to 
give it something of the sort it was necessary to polish it on the 
lapidary’s wheel. a 

It was nevertheless a great success. But now behold, in 1711, a 
certain John Schnorr, an ironsmith, traversing the environs of Aue, 
observed the white mire in which his horse was stepping, and imagined 
it would prove a cheap substitute for the flour then used for powdering 
wigs. He collected some in his handkerchief, made experiments with 
it, and ultimately sent it out largely for sale. Some time after, Bottger 
was surprised at the unaccustomed weight of his peruke; he shook it, 
examined the white powder that flew out, had the remainder of the 
packet brought to him, and chancing, as he took it between his fingers, 
to manipulate it like a plastic clay, he perceived suddenly, in a delirium 
of joy, that he had discovered the chief substance of porcelai—kaolin. 
The fact of the positive discovery having been verified, the elector 
determined to keep exclusive possession of the secret, and had an official 
manufactory built inside the Albrechtsburg, of which Bottger became 
the director. It was a veritable fortress, and had the drawbridge 
always raised: none but the workmen could enter or go forth at stated 
periods, and these were bound by a solemn oath to keep till death 
the secret which their opportunities might have helped them to pene- 
trate; they were aware that whichever one of them should dare to 
betray it, would be thrown, as a State prisoner, into the dungeons of 
Koenigstein, till death. ! 


Despite these terrors, a workman, named Kozel, fled to Vienna, 


—\ 


Fis So ee ag 
TS SS SS 
~ 


i Mm 


» \ NAN. a eee Rs 
Biry ACR 
4 UR ex) ee Sx 
one 


THE SKATING PARTY. 


(Group of Viennese Porcelain. 1760.) 
Page 152. 


Me 


————— hl lel 
- 


PORCELAIN. 153 


before the death of Béttger, carrying the secret with him. The gay 
and lively group known as the Skating Party, is in porcelain of Vienna, 
founded in 1720. The manufactory became, subse- 
quent to the year 1744, the property of Maria Theresa, 

and turned out veritable chefs d’awvre of elegance and 

delicacy. It was then that its works were stamped with 

the subjoined mark, in blue. The manufactory still 

exists, but as a private establishment.* 

Marvels were done by Bottger’s successors in the manufactory 
at Meissen. Anage like that of the eighteenth was wanted to prompt 
the genius of the Germans to such a display of gaiety and anima- 
tion. All Europe went to them for the ornamentation of their 
shelves and tables. Old Dresden imitated at first China or Japan China 
so effectually as to deceive the most experienced. Its decorations have 
a bold, golden tone, with a thickness that will not be forgotten after 
an. inspection of one choice specimen. About the year 1760, a modeller, 
named Kandler, executed the principal groups which have made Saxony 
famous, and are only equalled by Sevres and Chelsea. The ive 
Senses, the Mariage a la mode, the Tailor of the Count de Briihl and 
his Wefe, mounted, he on aram, she on a goat ; a hundred little amorini 
as hussars, as Hercules, doctors, apothecaries, gardeners ; musical apes, 
soldiers, and people of all conditions; the Muses on Mount Olympus ; 
the theological virtues and Italian comedy—there is a whole world 
here, laughing, singing, simpering, fretting, grimacing, kissing, un- 


dressing, all with a naiveté, an archness, a suppleness, and buffoonery, 


truly astounding in their diversity. 
The clocks, candelabra, and other table ornaments, are “rococo,” 


and occasionally less successful. It is not often that we meet so 


bold a form, and so happy a Watteau decoration, as on a vase kindly 
confided to us by M. L. Double. 

The mark of Saxony, the two crossed swords of the Wecsorate have 
been too often repeated or counterfeited for it to be necessary that we 
should reproduce it. Suffice it that the manufacture commenced with 
the monogram of the king, Augustus Rex; that a sort of caduceus 
is the mark of the first period; that the crossed swords succeeded it in 


* In consequence of the great annual expense to the State, by which it was sustained, 
in 1864 the Vienna porcelain manufactory was discontinued, and all the implements 
and utensils sold.—Ep. 


154 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


1742, and that when these swords have also a star or a dot, they 
signify an extremely delicate and choice piece of workmanship, executed 
under the superintendence of Marcolini, about 1780. 

: f 


A 


MARKS OF THE PORCELAIN OF SAXONY FROM THE DATE OF ITS ORIGIN. 


Most of the original moulds of Meissen or of Dresden are still in 
existence, notably those of the little white long-haired lap-dogs, whose 
eyes are veiled by shaggy brows like the weeping willow. They furnish 
good examples, but there is generally a want of harmony in the colour- 
ing. Old Dresden fetched the highest prices in England. At the 
sale of the Bernal collection, some few years back, a pair of candelabra 
in Dresden porcelain, twenty-four inches in height, composed of a 
draped female figure seated on a pedestal, with children holding 
escutcheons, and herself supporting a stem with five branches, was 
bought by the Marquis of Bath for £251. 

Germany, Prussia, Austria, Russia, Denmark, Switzerland, and 
England, imitated Dresden China more or less successfully. But 
we must quit Dresden to enter France, which had likewise its long 
course of triumphs. 

Louis Poterat, of St. Etienne, obtained in the year 1673 letters 


patent authorizing him to manufacture, at Rouen, porcelain “in ~ 


imitation of that of China and Japan.” In 1664, at Paris, Claude 
Révérend pledged himself “to imitate porcelain as fine and finer than 
that coming from the Indies.” These two manufacturers, of whom 
the first appears to have been a famous Ceramist, were inspired by the 
imitations of porcelain made by the potters of Delft. 


In 1698, an English physician and traveller, named Martin Lister, 


wrote: “I haye seen the pottery of St. Cloud, and I have not been 
able to find any difference between the articles produced. by this 
establishment and the finest Chinese porcelam I have ever seen. 


These pieces are sold at'a very high price at St. Cloud. Many 


crowns are asked for a single chocolate-cup.” Two years later, 


haat - 
7 oe.” —_— , : 
PO Ste Ee aD ay Se ene eee ree ee ee ee 


a a a 


ye 


(( : wy a 
. o Sart is vO & 


MU LLL 


Wl 
Mey, PM, 


Ne | 


VASE OF OLD DRESDEN PORCELAIN. 


(In Mons. Leopold Double’s Collection.) 
Page 154. 


PORCELAIN. <s9 


Legrand d’Aussy writes in his diary: “On the 3rd of last month, the 
Duchess of Burgundy, having passed St. Cloud and wound along the 
river-bank in order to call upon the Duchess of Guiche, stopped her 
carriage at the door of the house where MM. Chicaneau have esta- 
blished their manufactory of fine porcelain, which, without question, 
has not its equal in all Europe.” There is exaggeration here, but it 
proves the large degree of interest taken in the imitation of the 
precious productions of the East. In reality, the porcelain of St. Cloud, 
examples of which are known, imitates tolerably well the Chinese 
white, but is nothing more than a soft ware, coated with a lead 
varnish, yellowish, and often run in drops. 

We give here the mark, of 1702, of the soft ware of St. Cloud: 
the sun was an allusion to the privileges granted by 
Louis XIV. WY 

Trou, an associate at first of the MM. Chicaneau, 

ke | on subsequently on his own account, under the GY IS 
tre pe of the Duke of Orleans. 


“not , as it ea with any brillant success. 

| Chantilly, was continued, if not founded, by the Brothers Dubois, 
after deserting the St. Cloud manufactory, under the pro- 

tection of the Prince de Condé, and took for its mark a key 
hunting-horn. The services in soft porcelain, decorated 

with blue flowers of no precise form, are in very sober taste; still 

it is nothing but soft porcelain. 

It will be noted that it was the fashion among the nobles and mem- 
bers of the royal family to patronise the porcelain manufactures: in 
1735 we find, in addition, that Menecy-Villeroy * was established 


DV Sexe 


MONOGRAM OF THE MONOGRAM OF SCEAUX. MARK OF ORLEANS. 
DUC DE VILLEROY. 


* It may be stated as a principle, that typographical reproduction of marks are 
almost useless. In striving, as M. Greslou has done, to imitate them in coloured inks, 
their real aspect is missed : one particular mark is never—save when a stamp is intro- 
duced into the paste—repeated identically on every piece: the swords of Dresden, 
for example, have either been counterfeited or altered intentionally in all countries. 
Still we come upon a certain number of them occasionally, upon pieces possessing 


156 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


under the protection of the Duke of Villeroy. In 1750, Sceaux- 
Penthievre. Later, in 1750, Orleans stamps its hard pastes with the 
label of the Duc de Penthiévre. 

Vincennes, at last, is leading us to Sevres. The Brothers Dubois, 
having failed at St. Cloud and at Chantilly, came in 1740 to M. Orry 
de Fulvy, commissioner of the treasury, proposing to divulge the true 
secret of porcelain. They were installed at Vincennes, and failed 
again. But one of their workmen, by name Gravant, actually hit 
upon the method of producing soft porcelain. In 1745, Orry de 
Fulvy formed a company of eight partners, and privilege to manutac- 
ture for a space of thirty years was granted to him under the name of 
Charles Adam. The establishment was located in the official building 
of the commissioner at Vincennes. 

Great success attended the effort to produce those bouquets in 
relief imitating nature, pinks, anemones, poppies, wild roses, of which 
each petal, separately modelled in the hollow.of the workman’s hand, 


interest, and of which the reader may desire to learn the signification. Here area 
few borrowed from the book of M. Greslou, whom we have just mentioned, Recherches 
sur la Céramique. ‘These marks are generally painted in gold under choice pieces. 


— 


HOCHST OR MAYENCE. NYON IN BERLIN. TOURNAY. 


Arms of the Archbishop of alee ome Hard porcelain. _— Soft. porcelain. 
Mayence, 


LY 
r. © 


IC 


NIDERVILLER, LOUISBOURG. 
Monogram of Count Custine. Monogram of Prince Charles Eugéne. 
ae 
Re NE Dp rc 
CHELSEA. CHELSEA DERBY, DERBY. 


Soft paste. 


PORCELAIN. 159 


bears on its reverse side the impression of the lines of the skin, whilst 
the petals of the flowers produced in the present day are poured from 
the mould, and are, consequently, quite smooth. The model of those 
artificial flowers, encircling the dials of clocks and ornamenting candle- 
sticks, &e., was furnished to us by Dresden, which has always coloured 
them with a peculiar delicacy. They are the flora of the salons. 

In 1752, a decree of the council revoked the privilege granted to 
Adam, and decided that “the pieces of the said manufacture shall be 
marked with a double L, interlaced in the form of a cipher.” The 
following year King Louis XV. shared a third of the expenses. To 
give the mark a chronological value, a letter of the alphabet was added 
to it, which was changed every year.* | 

In 1754 the Empress of Russia, watchful of all that was passing 
in Europe as regarded letters, sciences, arts, and industry, gave an 
order for the celebrated service known as the “cameo” service, 
which did not cost less than 360,000 livres (Tournois). 

The establishment became too small for its daily-increasing success. 
Buildings (now falling into ruin) were erected at Sevres, and it was 
there that the manufactory, of which the king became sole pro- 
prietor in 1760, was transported in 1756. Boileau, who had presided 
over the works at Vincennes, and had acquired the secret of gilding, 


* The following are the series of marks adopted by the manufactory of Sevres from 
the period of its origin down to our days :— 


The letter A, in the 


: . : le 
middle of the two inter- This was used M. Imp = 
laced L’s, in blue or in from 1804 to1810: : 
gold, indicates the year de Sevr es. 
1753: B, 1754, thus up = 


to 1776, when the letters 
are doubled, thus: CC, 1780. 


From 1792 to 1800, the vi From 1810 to 1814, _g* Gi ‘a, 


monogram of the French the eagle, in red: 


Republic above the name } 
of the manufactory. Si evres. i * 
evrTe> 
From 1800 to 1804, in le From 1814 to 1824, the interlaced L’s 
red ; M N x of the eighteenth century in blue, with a 
Sevres fleur-de-lis, Sevres, and the two last ci- 
fiasco: phers of the date; and under Charles X., 


the L’s displaced by C’s. 


158 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


retained the directorship. It was to Madame de Pompadour that the 
encouragement extended to this seductive branch of industry was due. 

Up to this period the manufactory produced nothing but those soft 
pastes, so much sought after m our days, that have a true stamp of 
aristocracy. But the main endeavour was to accomplish the produc-— 
tion of Chinese porcelain, as Dresden had succeeded in doing. In 1761, 
one of the Hannongs, whose father had founded Frankenthal, offered 
to divulge the secret of Dresden porcelain for a high price, but the 
primary substance, kaolin, was still wanting. Réaumur had indeed 
invented a sort of vitrified glass, opaque, and having a semblance of 
porcelain, but it was nothing but a semblance. 

Chance led to the discovery, in 1768, of a bed of kaolin of extra-_ 
ordinary richness in France. The wife of a surgeon of St. Yrieux, 
near Limoges, a Madame Darnet, picked up in a ravine and pre- 
sented to her husband a lump of curious white earth, which had struck 
her as likely to possess the properties of soap. Darnet took a sample 
of it to one Villaris, an apothecary at Bordeaux, who recognized it as 
kaolin, and at once forwarded it to Sevres, to have experiments made 
upon it. There should be still, in the Ceramic Museum, a statuette of 
Bacchus modelled with this very kaolin. ‘The sadly-comical part of 


The series under Louis Philippe runs thus : 


*, 
(3 
> . 
2 . 
Wa) 

° 

U 


The letters, the signs, and frequently the vébus, are those adopted by the gilders 
and decorative painters of flowers, sea-pieces, landscapes, symbols, &. They are 
contained in a list that M. Jacquéemart gives in his excellent history of porcelain, care- 
fully copied from the registers of the manufactory. 


PORCELAIN. 159 


the story is, that it was Villaris who got £1000 from the Government 
for discovering the bed of kaolin. In 1825, Madame Darnet was still 
living, and in a state of wretched poverty; she is heard of begging for 
assistance to return to St. Yrieux-la-Perche, on foot, as she had left it. 
On the application of M. Brongniart, in disgust at so melancholy a 
rendering of the sic vos non vobis, the King, Louis XVIL., granted 
her a small pension from the civil list. To put the case in figures, 
France, in 1765, imported £12,000 worth of hard porcelain: ten years 
after the discovery of the St. Yrieux beds of kaolin, her exports were 
to the same amount. 

Kaolin may be likened to those treasures in fairy tales, which hide 
themselves from the cunning and reveal themselves to the innocent. 
A bed was discovered at Rudolstadt, in Thuringia, by a good woman 
who brought to a chemist what she called “a white dust, excellent for 
drying ink on paper.” 

Perhaps nothing in French art or industry will be found to equal 
the influence gained for us in Europe by the manufactory of Sevres. 
Saxony had spread the fashion, but the French taste and charm was now 
seen to triumph, while during and since the middle of the eighteenth 
century nothing has surpassed it. At this period French esprat re- 
covered full possession of its faculties, imitated no more, and lived on 
its own capital: it was itself, alert, winged, polished, learned without 
stiffness, philosophical in. the salon as in the press. Sevres is, in some 
sort, the “illustration” of this chapter in the history of Irance, where 
our art is displayed most characteristically, and the fragile leaves 
must not be smiled at. Conquests by arms are subject to strange 
reverses of fortune, and the future rarely confirms the most promising 
of grand political programmes. The discoveries of science have an 
altogether relative greatness; they are but the successively-forged 
links of a chain that passes through the laboratory of a chemist, and 
stretches to no one knows whither: they are unstable as science itself, 
of which the centre is perpetually shifting. ‘The creations of art only 
are living facts, in whatever form they are produced: the sublimity 
essentially belonging to the Parthenon, the Venus of Milo, the Syra- 
cusan medallions, to all Greek art, is immovable; nothing can ex- 
tinguish the sublimity of the Bible, of the Greek and Indian poems, 
of Dante, Shakespeare, and Moliere. Material facts are relative— 
intellectual, absolute. 


160 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Is an example required? What are the benefits derived by the 
France of to-day from the battle of Fontenoy, fought on the 11th of 
May, 1745? What winds of oblivion have not breathed on the dust of 
the laurels of Marshal Saxe? Some generations further, and it will 


i i | ) = i ( 
LES MUU 


FONTENOY VASE. 
(Sévres porcelain. Collection of M. L. Double.) 


‘be a name that a careless posterity will have allowed to sink more 
and more into the growing obscurity of hosts of other historical — 
names. But now, does not the monument raised to his memory 


PORCELAIN. 165 


at Strasbourg seem to wax more youthful, while it is more and more 
loudly praised? It was but the other day, that in the sumptuous 
mansion of M. Léopold Double, an amateur who surrounds himself 
with none but beautiful objects, we beheld this same battle of Fon- 
tenoy, whose date we had forgotten, revived upon two vases that 
Louis XY. had, without doubt, ordered of the manufactory for the 
conqueror. Singular heralds to despatch to future ages! some philo- 
sopher of the day may have exclaimed. Yet they live in all the 
lively splendour of their rose groundwork, veined with gold and blue ; 
between green palms the triumphal, mural, and obsidional (grass) 
crowns are interwoven; Genest has painted, after Morin, military 
scenes on two large escutcheons; here, the French troops carry the 
works defended by artillery, and spike the guns; there, they drive back 
the enemy into the orchards a little way out of the village of Fontenoy. 
Bachelier composed the warrior trophies, and they give the highest 
heroical aspect possible to this patent of glory in soft paste. 

For another example, Buffon, if he returned in the flesh, and in 
ruffles, would find many of the volumes of his “ Natural History,” which 
has been set aside by recent labours, neglected on the book-stalls, 
while, at M. Double’s, he would still see the service which he called 
his “Sevres’ Edition.” It is a table-service, counting more than a 
hundred pieces, upon which all the birds described in his book have 
been painted with the utmost nicety. 

Falconnet and Clodion supplied the prettiest subjects for the 
statuettes in bisewit, so called, though the paste has only passed 
through one baking. Boucher was universally copied in the medal- 
lions, in the plates for writing-desks, consoles, tables, flower-stands and 
pots, inkstands, &e. The Marquis of Hertford possesses a charming 
inkstand, that was presented by Louis XV. to Marie Antoinette on her 
arrival in France: the cipher of the Dauphin is at one corner; at the 
other the arms of France; in the centre is the profile of the King, 
with his fine arched nose. The cover is a crown; the sand-box and 
its fellow represent the celestial spheres. What gay and spirituel 
thoughts would not the pen gather from dipping into an inkstand 
such as that ! | 

But our enthusiasm must be moderated, or it will run ahead of our 
judgment. The art of Sevres is far from thoroughly exemplifying the 


art of the eighteenth century. It is but a feeble side of it, and in 
M 


162 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


lingering over it our, excuse is, that it has an European renown, and 
that choice specimens are fought for by amateurs with bundles of 
bank-notes. Three years ago a set of three deep blue vases, decorated 
with enamels, fetched at a public auction £2520! At the Bernal 
sale, every article was run up in the same degree by the English 
aristocracy. The two richest collections are those of the Marquis of 
Hertford, of which a fractional part was exhibited at the “ Exposition 
Rétrospective de ’Union Centrale,” and those of Queen Victoria, at 
Buckingham Palace. This royal collection was principally formed 
under the superintendence of Beau Brummel, afterwards bought by 
George IV. In 1853, Her Most Gracious Majesty exhibited sixty- 
six pieces, for the edification of the decorative artists, at seh i0 9 
House. 

The models are not always good. The forms are frequently slender ; 
in the placing of the medallions or the ciphers the decoration has 
established that commonplace and wearisome symmetry which is 
shunned by the Orientals as carefully as our academies patronize it. 
It is either very dark or without vibration in the blue de grand feu,* 
or uncertain in the green tones, scarcely agreeable in the turquoise 
or the rose-colour, christened Rose Dubarry. All that could be selected 
as harmonizing with the simple white decoration of a drawing-room, 
to garnish the chimney-piece or étagere after decorated or biscuit 
groups, are certain cups with small flowers and ewers painted with 
roses or cornflowers. 

This royal manufacture continued to live a factitious life up to the 
close of the eighteenth century, preserving the antiquated grace 
proper to the sound of the harpsichord, or the faint harmony of 
hue in water-colours wasted by the light. But, without haying 
produced anything great, Sevres has realized the ideal of prettiness. 
The decadence commenced with the Revolution and the Empire, and 
since them the abyss has not been filled up. Napoleon gave the 
strongest encouragement to the manufactory, chiefly for the purpose 
of beating the English and other centres of production. The useful — 


* The blue and green are almost the only colours used in the Sévres decoration 
which will bear without changing the intense heat of the kiln necessary to perfect the 
vase itself aw grand feu, and is generally employed as a ground; the other more 
delicate colours used for the medallions of flowers, &c., are burnt in at a lower arene 
of temperature, aw feu de réverbére, or muffle-k'ln. 


A VESTAL, 


(Statuette of Sevres biscuit.) 
Page 162. 


~ 
~ 


PORCELAIN. 163 


killed the pleasurable, at the same time that the pedantic stifled that 
conventional but exquisite antique style which the seventeenth century 
had, with the best faith in the world, bent to its wants and dreams. 
The architect ejected the decorator and the sculptor, the savant 
oppressed the artist, and the studio was overcome by the laboratory. 
M. Brongniart retained the sole directorship till 1847. His “ Treatise 


PLATE, WITH INITIALS OF MADAME DUBARRY. 
- (Sevres porcelain. Collection of M. L. Double.) 


on the Ceramic Arts,” looked at from a point of view exclusively of 
art, is the best reminder of his works. He was succeeded by M. 
Ebelmen. M. Regnault reigns at present, and, like his predecessors, 
keeps the manufactory in.a path that is honourable, but too much 
given to the system of working out theoretical experiments. 

mM 2 


164 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


To a certain degree it is commendable. It is well enough, that, 
in a State manufacture, the most costly experiments and trials of 
all kinds should be made. Unfortunately, these do no more than fill 
the pigeon-holes of the archives, while Europe, as well as France, sees 
the prestige of the manufacture diminishing day by day. It was 
affirmed, in 1862, with evidence enough to cause anxiety, that the 
productions of the two rich English Ceramists, Minton and Copeland, 
were almost equal to our own, and it was seen with astonishment that 
the large pieces exhibited were by no means up to the mark, even in 
the manufacturing: there was a great deal of pleasantry in the English 
journals and correspondence on the copper bands which held the larger 
vases together, for they are not baked in a single piece. 

In the period following 1848, under M. Ebelmen, there was still 
some elbow-room for art; among the decorations of this time we 
would select the “ Vase de la Guerre,” designed by M. Diéterle, and 
executed by M. Choiselat. Sevres then counted in its ranks Jean 
Feuchéres, Klagmann, Diéterle, Lessore, A. Choiselat, and Laemlein. 
Subsequently, Sevres has gone through the Néo-Greek stage, and 
its decoration has come out of it a degree lower, so to say, than the 
temperature of those comets borne by the stern laws of gravitation 
millions of leagues distant from the sun. One single master, M. 
Hamon, stamped his lucidly delusive and balanced touch on the 
figures of the pink and plump young girls walking home gravely, 
with a lily on the shoulder, holding butterflies with strings, or tinting 
with blue the corolla of a convolvulus. M. Hamon’s painting, either 
so indistinct or so harsh in his pictures, took a soft and subtle harmony 
on the polished shining surface of porcelain. There was decidedly, in 
M. Hamon, the half-awakened soul of a Greek potter, and Sevres was 
unable to make any use of it. 

Let it not be thought that the manufacture has sunk very low. It 


is capable of reproducing all the ancient models for amateurs rich — 


enough to pay for their whims. But the experiments also would 


have to be paid for, and the excitement abandoned of rummaging in 


curiosity shops, which can do all this better and cheaper. 

How many deceptions would be avoided! The spurious imitators 
have not been tardy in offering for sale “Old Sevres” bran new, of a 
kind that would puzzle the devil himself. The veritable soft paste 
is exceedingly rare. About 1813, the manufactory sold by public 


PORCELAIN. 165 


auction, and at a low price, supernumerary and store pieces. Three 
dealers established themselves in the town of Sévres itself, and invented 
a process for removing enamel, tinting the piece with turquoise | 


VASE OF WAR, 


(Modelled at Sevres, from the designs of M. Diéterle.) 


blue, for example, and painting thereon medallions or ornaments. 
Louis XVIII. accepted a present of a breakfast service, with a blew 
de Roi ground, decorated with portraits of Louis XIV. and the 


166 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


beauties of his Court, ordered, it was asserted, by Louis XV., and 
having long been kept in use by Louis XVI. We do not hear that 
the donor pretended to have received it directly from Louis XYL, 
but: it is the rule in cases of the sort. The master of the King’s 
household, M. de Pradel, thought fit to ask for more particular infor- 
mation at Sevres, and learnt that the historical souvenir dated from 
two to three years back at the farthest! The gilding had not a par- 
ticle of the character of the old gilding; the tray was posterior to 
the Revolution, and there was no trace of the monogram of the 
painter S * * * to be found in the records. Louis XVIII. smiled 
archly: and for the edification of future amateurs, he presented the 
audacious imposture to the manufactory, where it may be seen to this 
day in the glass cabinets of the Ceramic Museum. 

For our part, we should see no great harm in the increase of these 
deceptions. ‘They would force the amateurs to obtain their supplies 
direct from the manufactory. The latter would resume a beneficial 
activity, and its youth would be renewed by a closer connection with 
a choicer public. Sevres produces the most beautiful paste and the 
finest white in Europe; after it comes the English, and next the 
imperial manufactory of St. Petersburg. Let an artist be placed at 
the head of the works; remunerate properly those masters, painters, 
or sculptors, whose talent you monopolize; expend on behalf of the 
beautiful what is now spent for what you call the useful, and you will 
again ally yourself to the true French tradition, perforce of genius, 
which is to rise superior by dint of intellectual superiority. Avoid 
isolation, and be not inaccessible to the modern spirit of progress; 
try all the paths, after the example of the assiduous and learned 
keeper of your Ceramic Museum, who, without any bias in any direc- 
tion, gathers specimens of the pottery of all times and all countries. 
Lastly, repudiate the term industrial art, which was invented of 
late years to apply to your art productions, and be determined 
to reassume, as up to recent times was the custom, your place in 
the annual exhibitions of painting and sculpture. We want Sevres 
to remain as the chief school of fictile art, and, at the same time, 
to give the tone to commerce in the variety and exquisite taste of its 
models. | wor . 

We are bound in justice to state, that those useless tours de force, 
the reproductions of pictures, have been abandoned: useless, inasmuch 


PORCELAIN. 167 


as they could not possibly render the real aspect of the originals ; 
that they were not of a size to use them for decoration; and that 
they perpetuated the most vicious sort of decoration, by the employ- 
ment of neutral tints and abuse of more distinct ones. If, like. the ~ 
ghosts of the Elysian Fields, the dead are cognizant of what passed 
upon earth, singular must have been the ejaculations interchanged by 
Rembrandt and Titian, whenever they learnt that Madame Jacottot 
was going to give a finishing touch and a last baking to some one of 
her copies from their works. 

One of the happiest efforts of decoration realized in our day 
consists in applying white pastes on céladon, toned grey, fresh green, 
coffee, or clear chocolate. The invention dates from about fifteen 
years back. It has been employed by MM. Choiselat, Regnier, 
and Gely, with various success. 

A young sculptor, M. Solon, has almost made it his own by the 
skill and taste with which he handles it. Numerous oxides may be 
employed forthe colours producing céladons, and the half-tones are 
infinite. ‘The most exquisite shade is one reminding us of a “cloud 
of cream” in a cup of tea. But fire being the abode of malicious 
little gnomes, it results that the most careful mixtures have hardly 
much more chance of coming out perfect than those where the palette 
is left to its own chance, and the Ceramist cannot hope to be absolute 
master of his projects. 

The white paste, or engobe, is applied with a brush, in successive 
layers, on the coloured paste, which itself 1s embodied with the porce- 
lain, that is to say, a given thickness added to it, either by means of a 
brush or by immersion; thus making a rough shape, which is after- 
wards rounded and trimmed with sharp and cutting implements, or by 
means of a small scraper, until it has attained a given thickness. When 
this bas-relief is completed (for it is a real bas-relief), it is subjected 
to the first baking, which gives it consistence enough for it to be 
dipped at once into the enamel. Lastly, comes the final baking, 
and, provided the piece has succeeded, nothing can exceed the charm 
of the result: the thicker portions, in melting, retain a relief which 
forms the actual outline; on the other hand, the thinner parts 
enable the ground-work to show through them, and these form 
the flesh, a cloud, or floating draperies. If the reader is acquainted 
with Wedgwood’s biscuit paste, the figures of which are drawn 


168 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


in profile, in white on a blue ground, he has only to imagine them 
to have become transparent, remembering, too, those transparencies of 
porcelain which were called lithophanies. They seem aerial, and 
floating, half-drowned in a fluid mass. They recall the chalk studies, 
in white on blue paper, which Proudhon used to draw, and suggest, 
at the same time, the heads by Correggio, stamped out in Italian 
stone. Like those mysterious masterpieces, they seem to be gifted 
with actual palpitations and real smiles. 

M. Solon, who also signs his delicate bas-reliefs with the word 
Miles, is gifted with a perfectly modern sentiment for decoration. 
These nymphs, who push aside the reeds of the brook; these Psyches, 
who are lighting a Diogenes lantern; these water nymphs, re- 
clining on the brink of the waters, which flow from their bended 
urns; these chimeric figures, which stand erect, with bulgimg throats ; 
and these Medusas, whose hair is composed more of strings of pearls 
than of snakes ;—-these are the dream of an artist born in our day, 
and who only claims of antiquity or the Renaissance the more 
exquisite details of their fancy. You can, without hesitation, in all 
security, insert them in the panels of the book-case which contains the 
works of De Musset, or on the carved shelf which is to carry bronzes 
of Barye ; or, again, introduce them in the frame chiselled by the hand 
of Feuchéres, on the wall, beside water-colours by Delacroix: for 
their lightness and grace, they deserved to be called the younger 
sisters of this contemporaneous family. M. Solon has already met 
with thorough appreciation in that little circle of persons of taste, 
whose sympathy makes up for the noisy applause commanded by 
mediocrity. If only some illustrious amateur would lend his assist- 
ance to the matter, his works would, even to-morrow, be sought for 
with greater care than are those old rarities of vulgar form, whose — 
sole merit is their antiquity, and which take the first place 1 in ae oe 
curiosity shops. a4 

The manufactory of Sevres, which we now hope to see cone 
a wider artistic sphere, is undoubtedly the richest in painters, —e ¥ 
modellers, and chemists, that the world possesses. ite ca 

We are precluded from entering deeply into the more curious and. .: 
minute of its details. We give here a summary sketch of the series of 
manipulation through which the kaolin passes after it has been taken 
in its primitive condition ‘at St. Yrieux, near Limoges, and mixed 


(Wd aaa ea 7 
gaa 
z ball aL iW 


é 


an OTT 


THE MODERN PSYCHE. 


(Plaque enamelled upon Porcelain, of Céladon Sevres, by Mons. Solon-Milés.) 


Page 163, 


ass 


ot 


eerie tee 
a : 


= ee 9 werner « 


tf 


PORCELAIN. 169 


with chalk from Bougival. It arrives in tubs, and is thrown into 
large coppers full of water; the actual kaolin then detaches itself; 
when separate and solid it forms a white powder, which requires no | 
other trituration; this is the foundation of the paste; at the bottom 
of the copper there is a deposit of a sort of felspathic sand, which, 
subsequently pounded in a mill, and assisted in the baking by the 
carbonate of lime, or chalk, gives the requisite glaze and its trans- 
parency. ‘These three elements, mixed and kneaded with the utmost 
care, constitute the paste for the throwers to handle, either on a 
species of lathe, such as that which M. Edmond Morin went to Sévres 
expressly to sketch for us from the original, or by the casting process, 
for pieces of extreme thinness; that is, by pouring the paste, when 
in a liquid state, into a mould of a porous kind of wood. The piece, 
which now possesses all its constitutive elements of material, has 
only to be trimmed and finished; it then goes through the first 
baking, then it is dipped, either plain white or decorated, into 
the glaze, a liquid enamel which is a mixture of felspath and 
quartz; the pulverized portion, which quickly adheres to the pre- 
pared paste, is termed the “covering.” The “encasing,” or the 
process by which the pieces are protected from the direct action of the 
fire, is carried out by means of small cases or seggars, of which 
Palissy has already spoken, and of which the accompanying drawing 
gives a perfect idea. 

The placing into the kiln is a practical operation of the most 
delicate sort; for from that moment the fire is the all-powerful and 
sole agent; and whatever the secrets with which a hundred years of 
experience have endowed the bakers, whatever the precautions with 
which they are now armed, nothing can forestall the cruel and irre- 
mediable caprices to which this process is subject. When these cases 
are duly piled and disposed in their allotted place, those containing 
the more delicate pieces being placed in the medium heat, the door 
of the furnace is bricked up. ‘The furnace is lighted ; pieces of birch 
wood are thrown in, due care being taken gradually to increase the 
size and thickness of them, and the baking, occasionally subjected to 
an enormously high temperature, lasts from thirty to forty hours. It 
is possible, to some extent, at certain stages of the process, to overlook 
the incandescent centre of the oven, by means of long tubes, which 
reach it by passing through the thick brick walls, closed with a piece 


170 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


of glass of great thickness. Coal will, in all probability, be used for 
the ovens of the new manufactory. It 1s everywhere found service- 
able and economical. ‘The first attempts to substitute coal for wood 
were made at Lille, in 1784. 

The extracting from the furnace, which also requires great care and 
delicacy of handling, even after a cooling of not less than eight days, 
is followed by a period of great anxiety, for it is only at this moment 
that the peace is signed with those demons of caprice and whimsical 


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FURNACE OF GREAT HEAT, DURING THE ENCASING PROCESS. 
(Manufactory of Sévres.) 


perverseness presiding over these tedious manipulations. Only a 


few degrees more or less of caloric intensity at this or that moment — 


in the baking—influencing, as it does, a whole furnacefull—will repre- 


sent thirty or forty thousand francs, of material and workmanship, — 


transferred into a mass of useless rubbish ! 
None but a limited number of colours can be subjected to this 
high degree of heat, such as'chrome-green, and indigo-blue, which 


Se re eR 2 
ee Le Oe ee 


Agen: 


sp een 


PORCELAIN. 171 


have but little depth, and are far removed from the dazzling bright- 
ness of Oriental blue. Other colours would become volatile and 
disappear, without leaving behind any visible mark except one of, — 
more or less, dirt or smudginess. These after-colours (technically — 
termed “moufle”), the number of which is scarcely limited or de- 
fined, are applied to the surface of the pieces, before, during, or even 
after the glazing. They undergo the baking process conditionally 
—some more and some less—that is to say, they are laid on in 
successive tones, according as they require more or less bakmg. 

We will here indicate to our readers two methods of thoroughly 
- carrying out the study of which we have only here mentioned the 
principal features; the first is to go,on a Thursday, and visit the 
factory of Sevres ; they will find artists and workmen unexceptionally 
obliging. The second is attentively to read the work of M. Turgan 
on Sévres, in that beautiful and excellent book called “The Great 
Manufactories of France.” In order to demonstrate how greatly this 
picture of French industry in the nineteenth century facilitates the 
study of science, we have quoted the following page from it concerning 
the “impressions on porcelain”—a process, unfortunately, more de- 
mocratic than artistic. | 

“Tt was at Liverpool, in the manufactory of Messrs. Sadler and 
Green, in 1751, that the process of transferring engravings on pottery 
and porcelain was first attempted. In 1775, M. Bertevin, then employed 
at the Hétel des Invalides, suggested it to M. Parent, director of 
Sevres, who instructed him to print a series of sketches of antique 
cameos, which were employed to ornament the borders of the service 
made for Catherine of Russia. ‘This process was improved upon, and 
brought to perfection, especially in England, for the fabrication of those 
beautiful pieces of opaque porcelain, called caillowtages, which are 
often masterpieces of execution, and marvels of cheapness. MM. Neppel, 
Paillard, Saint-Amand, Honoré, and Decaen, greatly improved upon 
the scheme of making impressions on porcelain in France, by applying 
to it the process of etching, lithography, wood-engraving, and typo- 
graphy. One can easily apprehend the difficulty of printing on a 
surface so slippery as that of porcelain—rigid, sinuous, and almost 
always uneven. First of all, the engraving is made of different 
degrees of depth, so as to assist the application of variable thicknesses 
of colour, and then, as the colouring powders used very soon wear down 


172 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


the plates, these are made of steel, which resist longer, and more suc- 
cessfully, than copper. Next is prepared a glutinous kind of oil, to 
which is added the colour to be used, mixed with a certain quantity of 
smoke-black, which disappears in the baking; after thus loading the 
plate, it is printed on a very thin sheet of paper, devoid of gum, 
and slightly damped ; when the painting is transferred to the paper, 
the latter is laid on water, and when it is sufficiently wetted it is 
applied to the porcelain, to the surface of which the colours adhere ; 
then the paper is lifted off, and the pattern remains fixed, especially 
if care has been taken to press the paper firmly down, to effect a 
deeper impression. At Sevres this process is seldom used except for . 
gold lines and ornaments, monograms, ciphers, and coats of arms.” 

Sevres is, and we hope will continue to be, one of the vestiges of 
those manufactories of State whose produce, by their very perfection, 
and apart from any consideration as to the remuneration it brings, 
should brave all competition. The only combat worthy of it is one 
for the highest perfection of beauty. The supremacy .of France in 
the luxurious arts, acknowledged and proclaimed in those great 
Olympic Games, which in our modern language we call universal 
exhibitions, the business of which is to discriminate, is chiefly repre- 
sented by the manufactories of Sévres and the Gobelins. The vases, 
and even the whole services of Sevres, should only command a place 
in the possessions of the more opulent of the century, or serve as 
rewards offered by the nation to signal merit. So, after the yearly 
exhibition in 1850, M. Charles Blanc, director of the fine arts, did 
well to bestow, as prizes to the artists, specimens of it, instead of the 
customary medals. 

We will now desist from following, either in Site workshops at Paris, 
Limoges, England, or Russia, the history, either past or present, of a 
substance which, standing almost alone among the more recent dis- 
coveries of humanity, has solved the difficulty of combining the useful 
with the agreeable and ornamental. For a whole century France 
held it as its own exclusively, without rivalry. We must not deny 
her that conquest. In a few weeks from the present time, the manu- 
factory of Sevres, originally built under the direction of an amiable 
and intelligent woman, will leave its present old and respectable roof, 
the walls of which are trembling with age, to enter a modern palace. 
May it take advantage of this step to commune with its conscience 


PORCELAIN. 173 


and examine itself, with a view to further development and im- 
provement ! 

Far from rejecting the history of the times which made its glory, 
let it again peruse its pages and study the spirit which moved it. 
Thus will it perceive that decorative arts, Ceramic or others, cannot 
be independent of the vast tide of progress which carries a whole 
society along with it, and that, on the contrary, it is expedient, even 
necessary, to study the necessities and tastes of that society, in order 
to keep up any equality with its strides in advance. Let us hope that 
it will educate its children on a new principle, and so lay the founda- 
tion in France of a school that may successfully compete with and 
equal the Ceramists of the East, in the production of really original 
work. 


i + - ¥ 


S—WINDOW GLASS. 


The invention of glass, by accident, in Phoenicia—The a: 
‘highest antiquity—Gallo-Roman. glass—Arabic— 
glass of Murano—Method of -making mosaic 
German Wiederkoms—Hydrofluoric acid; its p 
Benvenuto Cellini attributes the formation of pr 
the moon—The Art of Glass, by Neri—Discov 
alchemists of the eighteenth century mistook i 
What constitutes crystal glass —History of a 


TABLE GLASS. 


Purny, the naturalist, recounts, in very picturesque terms, the history 
of the invention of glass; but it is somewhat improbable. If so 
singular a prodigy owes its discovery to chance, it must have needed 
a much higher temperature than that of which Pliny speaks to effect 
it. But let us see. A quotation from the translation by Antoyne 
du Pinet, Lord of Noroy, will grace our narrative with the language 
of the first years of the seventeenth century, and give it youth :— 

“In Phoenicia, a country bounding Judea, there is a certain lake, 
which is at the foot of Mount Carmel, whence rises the river of Belus, 
and this river joins the sea near Acre; it is about five miles in cir- 
cumference. 

“The waters of this river are very stagnant, and unwholesome for 
drinking, muddy, and very deep, so that one can never see the mud 
except when the high tide of the sea throws some of it up on the 
banks. Then one sees a sort of slimy mud, which is smooth and 
shiny, as if polished by the waves; it is supposed that the decompo- 
sition of salt water condenses this mud, which previously was of no 
use whatever. The beach where this process occurs is scarcely half a 
mile in length; nevertheless, from the beginning of time a sufficient 
quantity has been gathered there to supply nearly the whole of the 
universe. And as to the invention of glass, it is supposed to have 
been discovered by some traders in nitre, who, having come to 
take a little of the earth of this shore, wished to cook their dinners 
there ; but, as they could find neither stones nor pebbles on which to 

N 


178 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


support their pot, they thought of substituting pieces of the nitre, 
which, with sand, they came in search of. But having set fire to their 
fuel, and the nitre having attained a very high temperature, they 
suddenly perceived a liquid matter issuing from under it, and making 
its way through the gravel in great streaks; it is believed that this 
first suggested the making of glass.” 

And in truth glass is the result of the fusion of a kind of sand that 
is to be found in many places, and of which are specially composed the 
beautiful paths of white sandstone in the forest of Fontainebleau. 

Pliny goes on to add the following curious details respecting the 
glass of his time :— : 

pe ess The glass foundries are heated with wood like those where 
they melt bronze. The result of the first fusion is almost black. The 
glass is baked again in another oven, where it is given any colour 
desired. ‘The glass-makers of Sidon, whence came in former times all 
the beautiful glass that we now possess (Pliny wrote this somewhere 
about the year of our Lord 70), made blown glass, or else they 
polished it with the lathe, making it flat or in relief, as they would 
have worked on gold or silver. The invention of mirrors was dis- 
covered there. Thus it is that glass was manipulated in former days. 
Now, glass is made in Italy from a sort of sand which is found on 
the borders of the river Volturno; it is comparatively soft, and easily 
ground with a mill, and reduced to powder. This is in use all over 
the world, but more especially in Gaul and in Spain.” 


The Egyptians were familiar with this art in all its details, which 
is perhaps of as great antiquity as that of enamelled clay. They 
understood how to melt, colour, and carve it. The Greeks also used 
it, and made many a precious moulded medallion. But the most 
numerous monuments which have descended to us—preseryed, no 
doubt, by the interest attached to their very brittle nature—are 
Roman. Some charming specimens are to be seen among the glasses 
of the Campana collection, and several collections of amateurs of 
refined taste possess, either entire, or mended, cups of quaint style, 
vases of sometimes considerable dimensions, and little familiar objects, 
such as long-tailed birds, enamelled flowers, &c. &e. The Portland 
yase, of the British Museum, which was broken by a madman, and 
very cleverly put together again, is a marvellous example of style and 


TABLE GLASS. 179 


composition. It was found in the neighbourhood of Rome, in the 
middle of the sixteenth century, in a marble sarcophagus, which is 
said to have been that of Alexander Severus; it is of a rich blue 
ground, carved like a cameo in white relief. 

It is not an uncommon thing to see two plaques of glass placed one 
upon the other, between which is inserted very thin gold leaf; on this 
is etched, by means of a very fine point, representations of Christ, 
figures of saints, or inscriptions ; these are called “ graffiti,” and they 
remind one both of mosaics and cloisonné enamels. The eyes of 
certain busts and statues, when they were not made of gold or silver, 
were of coloured glass; at least, the eyeball always was of black glass, 
sometimes inserted into white ivory. At one period statues were 
entirely made of a black glass, called obsidian, which seems to have 
corresponded with our jet. 

The art of working glass was so thoroughly well understood at 
Rome, that at one time it was in full competition with the gold and 
silver utensils, for two of which Nero paid six thousand sesterces ; 
they were bowls of only small size. These two pieces, unless I am 
greatly mistaken, would, if placed at the Hotel Droudt, with a cer- 
tificate testifymg to their authenticity, be more highly esteemed than 
specimens of Oiron pottery ! | 

Pliny speaks, too, of the Gaulish glass-workers, and true it is - 
that scarcely any Celtic tomb is opened without producing a necklace 
of glass beads. The Gallo-Roman cemeteries contain, almost with- 
out a single exception, urns and vases full of ashes, cups, and lachry- 
matories, which not only contained the tears of the survivors, but, 
more especially, the particular essences and perfumes which the dead 
one had preferred when alive. They are for the most part brightly 
iridised, displaying all the colours of the rainbow with dazzling in- 
tensity—red, orange, metallic-green, white, and pink, shining out, in 
prismatic colours, like the winged shield of an Egyptian beetle, or 
the polished interior of a pearl oyster-shell. This peculiar irisation, 
which the Hispano-Moorish and Italian potters sought to imitate in 
their majolica with the aid of metallic lustres, is caused by a decom- 
position of the outer surface, which, however, was not premeditated 
by the glass-workers. 

In France, more especially in Poitou, some glass vases have been 
found of singular beauty, and ornamented with figures in relief. It 

N 2 


180 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


has been thought that they were originally manufactured in that 
neighbourhood ; for later on, in the Middle Ages, during the Renais- 
sance, large furnaces were found there which seemed not to haye 
ceased burning. ‘The pieces collected are, in general, like those found 
in Italy, Savoy, Autun, England, or Germany; they were made from 
models which were then greatly in fashion, and must have been des- 
tined for daily use. On the base of some of these vases we see dis- 
played representations of the combats of gladiators, athletic sports, and 
chariot-races; they must therefore have celebrated the automédon 
feats of celebrated wrestlers. ‘These pieces of glass have reached us 
uninjured. Will a single one of our illustrated journals still exist 
eighteen hundred years hence? and will our libraries be found to be — 
as faithful as these ancient cemeteries ? 

We will return, when speaking of stained-glass windows, to that 
vexed question of modern times—the use of window-panes among the 
Romans; let us now pursue our history of glass, though not in Italy 
—where, however, it did not founder in the catalogue of barbaric 
invasions, and reappeared with all its splendour towards the twelfth 
century—but in the Kast. 

The secrets of these workmen of Sidon, whose adroitness had so 
charmed the antique world, were probably known in Asia Minor, in 
_ Arabia, in India, and especially in Egypt. M. H. Layoix, a man of 
much erudition, thoroughly well acquainted with Arabic art, has pub- 
lished some interesting notes respecting these lamps, in the form of 
broad-margined vases, which M. Charles Schefer had lent to the “ Ex- 
position Rétrospective de l'Union Centrale.” “These lamps,” he says, 
“are swinging in hundreds, suspended to the ceiling by means of long 
silken cords, in the mosques at Cairo and Damascus. These cords, 
which are passed through slender loops upon the sides of the vase, 
meet above it like the angles of a polyhedron, and from the summit is 
suspended an ostrich egg, whence depends a smaller lamp descending 
to the interior of the vase. The light shines through the clear 
glass, and renders plainly discernible, either the letters of the legend 
upon it, or the ground upon which they are written, which is 
generally of coloured enamel.” They nearly always bear the name 
and title of the sultans and emirs who bestowed them for the deco- 
ration of the temple of Allah. Servility having in that language 
only one form of expression, the formula is always the same: “Honour 


TABLE GLASS. 181 


to our master, the victorious Sultan! Allah make his reign eternal !” 
The greater number of the lamps which M. H. Lavoix particularly 
studied, belonged to the dynasty of the Mameluke princes, and espe- 
cially to the reign of Mohamed-el-Naser, who reigned over Egypt 
and Syria for many years. They, therefore, date from the thirteenth 
century. 

In the “ Dream of Polyphile,” that romance of the latter years of 
the fifteenth century, to which we have already referred in noticing 


i 


= ILI) QE 


SOTA 


A PERSIAN BOTTLE AND LAMP, FROM AN ARAB MOSQUE, 
(In M, Schefer’s collection.) 


Bernard Palissy’s grottos, and which passes in review, under imagi- 
nary forms, all the arts of that period, such lamps as these are said to 
dispense their capricious light. “Owing to the diversity of precious 
stones wherewith these lamps were set, the temple was filled with a 
tremulous reflection of such brillant and cheerful colours, that the 
sun itself after a shower could not produce a brighter rainbow.” Our 
century, however, more inimical to the bright colours of fairyland, 


182 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


contents itself with ground or opaque glass for its lamps, a sombre 
light, well adapted to the dreamy figures which pass through ivory- 
handled doors in silence. 

Among the archeological exhibitions which, in 1860, gathered to- 
gether at Vienna the riches of the churches, and the treasures collected 
by amateurs, in the Austrian empire, there were two antique Persian 
vases of glass, gilt and enamelled. An inventory of the treasures of 
St. Stephen, at Vienna, in 1373, designates them as “ dus amphoree 
ex Damasco.” They were originally brought from the Holy Land. 
The first is a bottle, on the neck of which are two small handles; it 
is, decorated with interlaced zones, alternated with a groundwork of 
little rosettes of gold, edged with red, and blue enamel. The other, 
which is still more singular, had a frieze composed of little draped 
figures, four separate medallions, and a cypress tree, which, for Zoro- 
aster and his disciples, was an emblem of the soul’s flight into 
heaven. 

These are among the most authentic and the most precious speci- 
mens of Oriental glass which have been preserved uninjured until our 
day, and even in the fourteenth century they were considered worthy 
of a place in the Treasury. 

The Persians, especially after they had become Mohammedans, were 
always willing to reproduce on the sides of their bottles and cups — 
fragments of drinking songs and couplets, written im cursive cha- 
racters, which are in themselves elegant decorations. Many a time 
the Shahs officially sanctioned the use of wine, and Chardin, the 
traveller, has described the spot in the Palace of the Kings, at 
Tspahan, which is called the “ House of Wine :”— 

“The entrance is narrow, and is hidden by a wall which is built 
about two steps in front of it, in order to hide what is being done 
inside. When within, you find on your left large wine stores, and on 
your right a spacious hall. In the centre of this hall is a large basin 
of water; the sides are of porphyry. ‘The walls are covered with 
plaques of jasper, eight feet from the ground; and above these, up 
te the middle of the spiral ceiling, are thousands of little niches, 
of all sorts of patterns and devices, some containing vases or cups, 
and others bottles of every shape, form, and material—such as 
crystal, agate, carnelian, onyx, jasper, amber, coral, porcelain, precious 
stones, gold, silver, enamel, &c. &c.: all indiscriminately arranged, 


TABLE GLASS. 183 


and so placed along the walls, that they seem as if they were on 
the point of falling from their places. The offices and stores to 
the left of this magnificent room are filled with cases of wine, four 
feet high, and two feet wide. Most of the wine is contained either in ~ 
flasks, which hold from fifteen to sixteen pints, or in long-necked 
bottles, of two or three pints. These bottles are of Venetian glass, 
variously ornamented, cut with the diamond, in gadroons, or network. 
As the best Asiatic wines are bright-coloured, they are preferred in 
bottles. ‘These are corked with sealing-wax, over which is a bit of 
scarlet silk ; the seal, which is stamped upon a silken thread, is gene- 
rally that of the governor of the place, for some of these wines are 
from Georgia, some from Caramania, and others from Shiraz.” 

In writing that these bottles are made of Venetian glass, Chardin 
is evidently in error. Venice, on the contrary, borrowed the idea 
of these quaint and charming forms, which she has multiplied with 
so much taste and ingenuity, from the East. That bottle with so 
elegant a neck, which M. J. Labarte has reproduced in his “ Histoire 
des Arts Industriels,” and which, after being bought for nearly 
5900 .franes at the Soltykoff sale, is now in the possession of M. 
Gustave de Rothschild, is in all probability of Byzantine origin. 

Let us here remark, in passing, that we find in its medallions that 
mysterious flower with three petals—one upright, and the two others 
drooping—which first gave to our ancestors the idea of the fleur- 
de-lis; which M. Adalbert de Beaumont found on the most ancient 
monuments of Asia, and which is among the most insoluble problems 
of heraldic science. 

When hunted by barbarians, towards the fifth century, the Venetian 
population sought tranquillity in the retirement of the Lagoons. 
There they carried on the fabrication of glass, which did not take up 
much space, and which they had practised for long centuries pre- 
viously. No doubt these glass-workers had been initiated in the 
secrets of the art by the Phceenicians and Egyptians, themselves so 
clever and artistic in working enamel, if we may be allowed for an 
instant to apply this term to glass when in a melting state, not 
adhering to any metal. The mosaic glass, or what was afterwards 
called the “mille fiori,” is nothing more than enamels which have 
been stretched when in a fusible condition, and then put together 
again in a given order. Mosaics themselves are but a different 


184 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


application of the same idea; instead of melting together small tubes, 
or little balls of coloured glass, these were introduced into a plastic 
sort of putty, spread upon the ground or on a wall. 

In the middle of the thirteenth century the glass-makers of the 
Rialto, molested by the police regulations, which, for the prevention 
of incendiary accidents, compelled them to establish their furnaces at a 


SPECIMENS OF MURANO GLASS, 


respectable distance from the habitations of men, finally settled down 
in the Island of Murano. And does there not appear to exist a sort of 
affinity between the inhabitants of these districts—surrounded by water 
—and these thousands of transparent objects, clear as water, and shining 
like a sun-illumined wave? None of our Western decorative arts 
have attained so unique a development, and none haye so quickly 


TABLE GLASS. 18 5 


caused the source to be forgotten whence they have taken their models; 
nor was a charmed world ever governed with so brittle a sceptre. 
Was it not, therefore, wise of the Venetian senate to confer, even 
as early as the eighteenth century, the title of nobility on artisans — 
who had shown themselves to be such valuable and such inventive 
artists ? ' 

A chaplain of Louis XIII., Réne Francois, a writer of great enthu- 
siasm and refinement of language, in his “ Essai des Merveilles de la 
Nature et des plus nobles Artifices,” pretends to believe that glass is 
in fact congealed water, and exclaims:—‘“ Who sought out from the 
bosom of sand and gravel this fragile and delicate metal, created both 
for the eye and the lips —this beautiful treasure which causes the wine 
to laugh when it finds itself enclosed in the mysterious bosom of its 
mortal enemy, water, fashioned into cups, and into a hundred thousand 
other shapes and figures? Murano of Venice may well thus play with 
thirst, and, by filing Europe with thousands and thousands of pretty 
courtesies in glass and crystal, force people to drink because they 
possess them; they drink a ship or a gondola full of wine! they 
swallow a pyramid of hypocras, a belfry, a tub, a bird, a whale, a lion— 
in short, every sort of animal, potable or otherwise! The wine itself 
is quite surprised to find that it has so many and such different 

identities, so many colours, for in yellow glass claret becomes as gold, 
and ina red glass white wine becomes scarlet! Is it not fine to see 
scarlet, gold, white, and azure, swallowed down at one draught ?” 

There is nothing exaggerated in the word-painting of this graphic 
page. The imagination of the Murano glass-workers has attempted 
every form; their chemists furnished them with the most durable as 
well as the finest colours; the Mediterranean-blue and the milky- 
white, the veined sea-green, or powdered gold in dots, and the tender 
hue of the pink hortensia. Long before the time of the Caffagiolo 
and Urbino potters, they painted in the medallions of a goblet the 
likeness of two affianced lovers, and on one of these memorials of tender 
recollections I read the words, Amor vol Fe (Love exacts Fidelity).* 


* This beautiful cup, formerly in the Slade collection, is now to be found, with all 
the other rich treasures it contained, in the British Museum. The late Mr. Felix 
Slaile not only bequeathed his collections of glass and rare engravings to this National 
Repository, but invested an annual sum for the purchase of additional specimens; and, 
moreover, founded three professorships for the study of Art in the Universities ot 
Oxford, Cambridge, and London.—Ep. 


186 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


A legend, as quaint and fantastic as the scene of a masked ballet, 
has transmitted to us the name of one of these noble artisans. The 
glasses and vases of Angelo Beroviero, who established himself at 
Murano in the earlier years of the fifteenth century, at the sign of the 
“ Angel,” were renowned for their brilliancy and grace. He was the 
disciple of a clever chemist named Don Paolo Godi de Pergola, whose 
methods he had improved upon, so that he could paint and stain glass 
with every imaginable colour. He wrote the secrets of these ina 
book, which he kept entirely to himself, intending them to be inherited 
by his successors, thus ensuring the fortune of the factory he had 
founded. Unfortunately he had a daughter, who was pretty, and 
only too susceptible. A young workman of her father’s, whose real 
name was Giorgio, but who, no doubt for his quickness of wit and 
cleverness, but chiefly in irony, for he was lame, was called “Il Bal- 
lerino,” paid pious court so successfully, that one fine morning he 
absconded, taking with him not only the fair Marietta, but also the 


valued register of secrets. . . . . Which was best to lose, one’s 
daughter, or one’s secret treasure? A glass manufacturer might well 
hesitate !... but the balance went in favour of the latter. I Ballerino 


returned the book, obtained the hand of Marietta with a good marriage 
portion, and not only so, but he set up these furnaces on his own 
account, heading the well-known house of the Ballerini. 

A pilgrim who visited Venice in the first months of the year 1484, 
tells an anecdote which exactly illustrates the heaviness of the German 
blood at the end of the Middle Ages. When the Emperor Frederick I. 
was in Venice, the Doge and the Senate showed him a beautiful 
glass vase. The Emperor praised its beauty, extolled the rare merit 
of those who had made it, and then, as if by accident, he let it fall 
from his hand, thus breaking it into a thousand pieces. ‘Then feign- 
ing great regret, he exclaimed: “Alas! what have I done?” He 
then picked up the fragments, adding, “ See how superior are vases of 
gold and silver to these, for they are of value even when in mere 
fragments.” The Venetians understood him, and on his departure his 
practical majesty was presented with vases of gold and silver ! 

What a mercenary calculation for a shepherd of men! If the 
hammer and chisel of the goldsmith had not ennobled these objects of 
gold and silver, they would have been of exactly the same value as — 
the ingot when it issued from'the mine. On the other hand, the vase 


TABLE GLASS. 187 


which his Majesty had so carelessly dropped from his brutal hands 
may have been one of the family of those inestimable objects which, 
in the Italian campaigns, Bonaparte exacted as seals of treaty. Artists 
were not of Frederick’s opinion. In 1656 the Insolvent Court of the 
town of Amsterdam registered the inventory of all the possessions of 
Rembrandt, who was ruined by a settlement of family lawsuits; it 
comprised a magnificent collection of pictures and statues from the 
hands of masters, the costumes and war implements of various savage 
tribes, antique busts, minerals, and shells, drawings and engravings, 
moulds, and among the various pieces of Chinese and Japanese porce- 
lain, we read of “a few rare vases and pieces of Venetian glass.” 

The discovery, or rather the bringing to perfection of crystal 
glass mirrors, which were called to replace those of polished steel, 
dates from the fourteenth century, and is due, it is believed, to 
Germany. It is purely an industrial matter, and one which need 
very little engage our imagination. The Venetians, however, have 
greatly ornamented these plain surfaces by stamping upon the edges 
of them mythological figures, which stand out from a framework of 
flowers or grotesque designs. They also made some very original 
frames by inserting ebony into steel, or inlaying copper with bits of 
glass ; sometimes, again, entirely of bands of glass placed in gradation 
and catching the light at different angles. 

These latter years have brought forth some of those paper-weights 
in imitation of the mille fiore, which suggest the effect of a kaleido- 
scope when placed upon a handful of flowers or coloured pieces of 
paper. ‘These modern pieces are as well executed, from a practical 
point of view, as were those of the Renaissance; but the form of 
them is provokingly simple and inadequate to the occasion. The 
process in itself is easy ; it is composed of a number of little sticks of 
glass, which are put together like the various threads of which a 
thick rope is made; these are put in the furnace to bake, and then 
they are twisted in a particular way when in a pliable condition. 
But that which has not been transmitted to us, is the ingenuity of 
the worker in glass, who managed to intertwist and mix them in a 
spiral form in the bottom of a bowl, like the threads of a spider’s 
web, or rise in the stem of glass like a harp-string tightened by 
the rays of the sun, radiating from the central point like those lines 
of purple and gold which, during the scenes of a phantasmagoria, 


188 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


light up the black curtain, and seem to get larger and larger as they 
roll on themselves. It is here as with those popular ballads, at once 
merry and sad, which, though correctly printed, do not, unless heard, 
convey the idea of the dialect on which all their movement and 
character depend. 

But we must not imagine that all the glass that has descended to 
us was made at Murano. France, and especially Lorraine, has pro- 
duced much that is charming. Germany gave it a heavier character ; 
but one which is both characteristic and eminently heraldic. There 
is between these styles as great a difference as exists between a 
Florentine dagger and a ponderous Swiss two-handed sword. 

These are the liveliest reminiscences that ancient Germany has left 
us of her festivities. These goblets, which contained more than a 
quart of beer, those Vidrecomes for drinking Rhine wine, escutcheoned 
and enamelled with all the colours in heraldry, had a look of ponderous 
grandeur when placed on a table. They are ornamented with figures 
of Swiss soldiers triumphantly marching, with redundant gestures, 
their fists resting on their hips, their chests puffed forward, and with 
strained legs, while their noses and mouths are deeply buried in their 
fan-shaped beards, haughty and rough, under the waving standard of 
their cantons. Here we see the Austrian eagle tightly grasping in 
its claws the sword and the Catholic globe, stretching its twofold 
head towards invisible horizons. There a young couple is treading 
the “ Liebens Thal,” or “ Valley of Love,” together. Sometimes it is 
a cordial exclamation of hospitality, which warns the imyited guests 
against the allurements of wine and beer. In the closet of the 
“Chateau de la Favorite,’ near Baden, drinking vases of the 
Princess Sybille are still to be seen; each one bears the arms and 
motto of its master, engraved by the wheel, the workmanship of 
which is as delicate and fine as lace worked by fairies. Sometimes 
the escutcheon is stamped with a crest, of which the swelling drapery 
droops like the virgin vine on the sides of a dismantled fort. 3 

Murano, which is no longer anything but a sad little island, still 
continues to make chandeliers ornamented with flowers, fruits, and 
other devices in coloured glass, which dealers still attempt to pass for 
pieces of the eighteenth century. 

The process by which those beads and necklaces of coloured ager 
such as, without intermission, have charmed the African people ever 


GERMAN GLASS DRINKING VESSELS. 


(Museum of the Hotel de Cluny.) 


Page’ 188. 


oninpe 


me yr nent aa 
dig een 
emerge 3 oe 


TABLE GLASS. 189 


since the fifteenth century, just as diamonds, pearls, and precious 
stones are the dream of European women—are made, is singular 
enough. The disposition of the furnaces and melting-pots is the same 
as with us; the first ingredients are potash, soda, and a species of 
silicious sand, which is to be found on the coast nearest to Venice. 
As soon as the substance coloured by the ordinary mineral oxides 1s 
melted, the glass-worker plunges the end of his stick into the melting- 
pot, which stick is a tube of iron five feet long, and the fundamental 
instrument of the art. By means of this iron tube he blows a large 
aperture in the glutinous mass. Then another workman, who has 
already gone through this operation, approaches, and applies his rod 
end to end with the other, which adheres to it; then they both pro- 
ceed to run in opposite directions. By this process they can spin a 
glass tube no thicker than a hair, and nearly a hundred feet in length. 
Then this tube is broken into lengths of two feet, and handed to the 
next workman, who cuts the tube, which is technically called, in 
French, “a canon,” into small pieces as broad as they are long, and 
throws them into a basket which is full of infusible clay and char- 
coal dust; these fill the centre hole, and prevent its becoming 
stopped, when the whole is submitted to another baking in order to 
round off the angles. This second baking is carried on in an iron 
cylinder, which is kept constantly in motion, to prevent the beads 
from adhering to one another. After this, nothing remains but the 
sorting, which is effected by passing them through sieves of a given 
size. Certain other beads, stronger and more elegant than these, 
are obtained from the enameller’s lamp. The faceted, or cut-glass 
beads, are made at Reichenberg, in Bohemia. 

As we have already said, the art of wheel-engraving on the surface 
of glass was carried very far in France. These goblets, generally of 
a simple form, and which are ornamented with monograms of initial 
letters, repeated back to back and interlaced, in the midst of an 
escutcheon, are well known. The most delicate of these were engraved 
in the reign of Louis XVI. In our days, the discovery of an exceed- 
ingly powerful chemical agent has rendered popular an ornamentation 
very similar to it in its character ; and that, strange to say (for it is a 
rare privilege among modern inventions), without in any degree 
depriving it of its typical characteristic: that agent is hydrofluoric 
acid. : 


190 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Up to this time it is, without exception, the only agent known 
that will eat into glass, or rather that will instantaneously decom- 
pose it. It seems to attack it with a kind of vindictive rage, im- 
patiently refusing to be contained in the glass flagon into which it is 
poured ; only metal or gutta percha have power to dominate it, and 
restore it to reason; it is like a madman, who cannot for a moment be 
let loose without a straight waistcoat. The chemist simply gives this 
explanation, that it takes violent hold of the silicious acid in glass, and 
that the mutual decomposition of both combines to become fluoric of 
silicitum. The recognition of this chemical fact took place in the last 
years of the eighteenth century, and the “ Eneyclopzedia ” indicates that 
the means of using it to engrave the surface of glass is the same as 
that which is employed to engrave a copper or steel plate by means 
of nitric acid. 

In 1810, Gay-Lussac and Thénard had introduced the method— — 
always an exceedingly dangerous one—of making the preparation ; and 
in 1854, L. Kessler published an adaptation of it, which was imme- 
diately seized upon by the glass painters and glass seins ele 
of St. Louis and of Baccarat. 

It is with the help of a rather complicated process of tracing or 
stamping off, but one which is certain of a good result, that the printing 
of a cipher, or any other given ornament, on the surface of glass or 
of crystal, single or double, on porcelain, on earthenware, or on hard 
stones, is effected. At two exhibitions of the “ Union Centrale,” we haye 
seen, in the glass cabinets of M. Bitterlin, rmg-seals, carnelian plates 
for the covers of boxes, glasses for champagne, or for the shelves of a 
drawing-room, with the arms of their owner raised upon them in 
relief, either in white or in colour, in gold, or even in silver, delineated 
with a truly artistic neatness, insomuch as 1t was neither stiff nor mono- 
tonous. Wherever the acid comes in contact with the glass, it scoops — 
out, on the edges and at the bottom, a kind of hollow pathway, which — 
is formed of tiny cells, almost microscopically small, but which, never- 
theless, do not present so smooth a surface as that made by the chisel. 
Between these modern specimens of engraving and the ancient ones, 


there is the same difference of aspect as that which exists between _ 


aquafortis engraving and chiselling. The French artists have a very 
expressive technical term for this a they sick ee the en 
fortis process “ looks more greasy,”’—“ C’ | plus gras.” 7 


TABLE GLASS. 1gi 


It is with the help of this acid that, at a trifling expense, the polish 
is taken off the lamp-shades and globes now in use; that is, the surface 
of the glass becomes rough, and it goes among us by the name of 
ground-glass: this creates a much more subdued and harmonious light. 
It is also through the agency of this acid—which has no other draw- 
back than severely to burn the hands of the workmen who use it, if 
by any chance there should happen to be a crevice, however small, in 
the indiarubber gloves which they wear for protection—that are made 
the large glass reflectors, which surround the centre chandelier in the 
more modern theatres in Paris, such as the Gaieté, the Chatelet, and 
the Théatre Lyrique. 

In this we see a completely new art, and it only remains to use it 
judiciously, and not expect more from it than it will easily perform. 
It is spreading fast, and may be said to have forced its way into our 
houses. The old-fashioned ornamental window-panes, encased in all 
their ponderous and proportionately solid leaden frames, were never 
intended to be closely examined ; their enamel, rendered semi-opaque 
by the heat of the fire, required that one should be at some yards’ 
distance from them to appreciate lapidary splendour; and as to the 
window-glasses of smaller dimensions, painted in the style, for instance, 
of the Renaissance Swiss stained glass, they had the drawback of in- 
tercepting the light by the multiplicity of their detail, and, in any 
case, they should always be reserved for retired and sombre corners, 
such as a library or study window. 

The scheme of engraving with hydrofluoric acid, on the contrary, 
admits of ornamenting large surfaces, while it proportionately varies 
on them the effect, either of glass of several different colours, or of a 
groundwork of dull or shining glass in white ; or, again, of the reverse. 
It brings variety to those large pieces of plate-glass which are used 
for skylights, or to give a merely necessary amount of light on the 
ground-floor of an office or public staircase; it may break the bare and 
severe monotony of those handsome glass panels which serve to reflect 
the room, when placed at the end of it, thus doubling its length and 
‘size, by being artistically used instead of the wooden cornice or par- 
tition which, in ancient days, separated one room from the next; it 
may be brought to disperse the light discreetly in a lady’s boudoir, 
reflecting it on certain objects and not on others ; and in these modern 
days, when in large towns, and for the sake of space and comfort, 


192 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


houses are divided into flats, with one large and general staircase, 
this process admits of the windows of the staircase and lobby, for 
instance, being so transformed and ornamented as to present the effect 
of blinds of the finest lace, which admit the necessary amount of light, 
only intercepting the indiscretion of curious outsiders. Nothing is 
easier, too, than to carry out the Venetian fashion we have already 
alluded to of decorating the frames of looking-glasses with balls of 
glass, which, when placed behind a silver or copper arm, extended 
and bearing a branch of lights, acted as reflectors. 

But it was far from being the first attempt which succeeded in 
producing that artificial crystal, which, by its purity and the homo- 
geneity of its particles, so closely resembles rock-crystal. At first an 
attempt was made to imitate, not exactly real diamonds, but every 


description of transparent stones. Pliny, on this subject, tells us of 


the spur.ous imitations of the Indian glass-makers; but their merit 
was somewhat less than ours, inasmuch as the ancients made use of 
rubies, emeralds, beryl, chalcedony, hyacinth, and sapphire, in an uncut 
state, so that the glass-worker had not, as they now have, to obtain 
flat and polished surfaces, without the slighest speck or flaw, at ne, 
conceivable angle. 

The cabinet of antiquities at the Imperial Library contains an 
amazing instance of the great ability the Persians had in their imi- 
tation of precious stones, under the dynasty of the Sassanides, in the 
middle of the sixth century. The “Chosroes Cup” is composed of a 
sort of framework of solid glass, on which are three circular rows of 
eighteen medallions in rock-crystal and violet and green glass, which 


surround a medallion of the King in rock-crystal. ‘The intention was — 


evidently to imitate rock-crystal, garnets, and emeralds. 

Benvenuto Cellini has devoted the whole first chapter of his “Traité 
d’Orfévrerie ” to the nature of precious stones, real and false, the metals 
used in the mounting of them, of stone doublets, and the staining of 


diamonds. “It is not our intention,” he continues, with that self-reliance — 


for which he is often so amusing, “ here to discourse upon the causes 


which produce precious stones, this question having been quite suffi-’ 


ciently treated by philosophers, such as Aristotle, Pliny, Albert the 


Great, Solin, Flimante, Isidore of Seville, and a number of other very — 
learned men ; it will therefore suffice us to observe that precious stones, 


like many other natural things which are produced under the influence 


TABLE GLASS. 193 


of the moon, are composed of four elements. Nature seems to have 
exerted herself to represent these four elements in their several colours, 
in the four finest stones, namely, the ruby, the sapphire, the emerald, 
and the diamond. Thus it is that the ruby represents the element 
_ fire; the heavenly blue of the sapphire, air; the joyous colour of the 
emerald suggests the grass-green earth; and the diamond, water— 
pure, clear, limpid, and transparent.” 

Then he goes on to speak of the carbuncle, “which shines in the 
night like a fire-fly,” and of the pearl, “which is but the bone of a 
fish.” He speaks too of the piece of tinsel, which is placed at the 
back of the setting to intensify the red of the ruby, or the green of 
the emerald, &.; to change the tint of the diamond, together with 
recipes for its preparation. Let us, however, not lose sight of the 
fact that towards the year 1530, when he writes, the ruby was, at 
least temporarily, rarer than the diamond, and consequently dearer. 
Cellini styles false emeralds ‘‘ adulterated stones.” 

But this chapter deals mostly with the mounting of jewellery, and 
Cellini does not dilate much upon imitation glass. On the other 
hand, a Florentine named Neri has, in his “Art of Glass,” studied 
the matter under its most numerous aspects. He treats of it with 
so much enthusiasm that in the Preface his pen has ali the volubility 
of the humbug’s tongue in “L’Amour Médecin.” ‘It is only with 
the help of glass that all these different kinds of vases are made, such 
as the gourds, the alembics, the recipients, the pelicans, the cornu- 
copie, the serpents, the phials, the square glasses, bottles, and an 
infinite number of other articles which are daily invented to contain 
the chemical preparations of aleaiteric, arcanum, or quintessences, 
salts, sulphurs, vitriol, mercury, and various dies and decompositions 
for ali metallic operations, without counting the preparations of aqua- 
fortis, so essential,” &c. In this treatise, which on the whole is very 
important from a practical point of view, Neri indicates the method he 
adopted in order to endow glass with an aquamarine tint, with sky- 
blue, emerald-green, and turquoise-blue. And finally he gives a recipe 
for making what is commonly called crystal, that is to say, a species of 
glass far more homogeneous and more transparent than blown glass, 
and which is susceptible of being cut at all angles and im all devices, 
as neatly as one can cut rock-crystal. 

In our day imitation has reached a degree of perfection that borders 

0 


194 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


on the miraculous. Our readers must have observed, even if they have 
never had the curiosity to look into the glass cases of jewellers’ shops, 
the brilliant facsimiles of the Sancy, the Regent, and the Ko-hi-noor, 
they must have often seen attached to pretty little ears, or decorating 
some snowy neck, cut beads of all shapes, pear-shaped drops, &c., 
which are cut with the most admirable precision, and clear as the 
waters of a mountain stream. To crystal glass, again, is due one of the 
instruments which has created a perfect revolution in the modern 
scientific world, to which it has opened out an altogether new horizon, 
namely, the microscope. 

Telescopic and magnifying glasses, too, have nade increased 
the field of study with regard to astronomical hypotheses ; but ts are 
not the forms of it which we are now pursuing. 

The dream of transforming water into crystal had crossed the mind 
of the alchemists of the eighteenth century, with as great a degree of 
persistence as that of the transmutation of metals. There were no 
experiments, however complicated, which were not attempted by these 
men of science, who themselves were, after all, the natural fathers of 
chemistry, the greatest of all modern sciences; nor were there any 
quaint titles which they did not bestow on the title-pages of their 
treatises, or any anecdotes too romantic for them to relate. I have 
taken the following from the “Sol sine Veste,” or “ L’Or Nud,” a book 
of thirty experiments with a view to derive a purple colour from gold, 
together with a few conjectures on the destructibility of gold, and the 
method of arriving at the highest degree of perfection in the making of 
false rubies or red glass, by J. OC. Orschall, Inspector of Mines to the 
Prince of Hesse. He recalls to his mind a singular experiment, 
which a friend had written to him from Hamburg, about a dozen 
years previously :—“ A company of respectable people happened to be 
assembled at an inn; they were all intelligent, and fond of in- 
vestigating curious questions. They were talking together, when 
a stranger who was present joined their party and entered into con- 
versation with them. A minute after he asked for a glass of fresh 
spring water, and it was brought him. He then unbuttoned his coat, 
and opened the breast of his shirt; some of the company observed that 
he wore, next his skin, a kind of wide belt, to which were suspended 
several small purses; one of these he opened, and, drawing out of it 
the portion of a drug, he threw it into the water; then he disap- 


TABLE GLASS. 195 


peared, and none knew what had become of him; this caused them 
to wonder what was contained in the glass of water, and on looking 
they found it to be crystal, and so hard as to amaze all present. . . . 
As for me,” adds the writer, “I do not doubt that smoking spirit can 
coagulate water.” And then he devotes himself with redoubled ardour 
to his crucibles and his furnace. 

We have said before that crystal, or, as the English call it, “ flint- 
glass,” has lent a very valuable assistance to the science of anatomy 
and that of astronomy, as well as to the coquette. It is with regard to 
the jewel which completes the beauty that a poet has said: 


“‘(uand il jette en dansant son bruit vif et moqueur, 
Ce monde rayonnant de metal et de pierre 
Me ravit en extase, et j'aime & la fureur 
Les choses ott le son se méle & la lumieére.” 


Those fine crystals which nowadays compose the lustres and chan- 
deliers which cover the table beneath with a thousand brilliant and 
moving lights, are generally brought from Baccarat, where the finest 
execution is to be met with at the same time as the most perfect 
process. 

Lorraine has furnished us with glass almost from time immemorial ; 
its immense forests furnished abundance of wood for fuel. Palissy 
seems to have been there, or, at least, to have passed through it, when 
he made his grand tour of France as an incipient glass painter. At the 
beginning of the seventeenth century the master glassmen of Nancy 
formed an important corporation, which had for its patron saint St. 
Luke, who is also the patron of painters. 

Baccarat was founded in 1765, by M. de Montmorency Laval, 
Bishop of Metz. ‘This establishment bravely withstood the social, or 
rather industrial, earthquake, which befell almost all industrial arts at 
the downfall of ancient society. In these modern times it is under the 
management of a director, who represents a very powerful company. 

The glass, which is exclusively made there, is obtainable at a lower 
degree of temperature than blown glass ; also the common basis of all 
glass, namely silex, instead of soda and lime, receives the addition of 
potash, but especially that of a particular substance called minium, or 
oxide of lead. Venetian and Bohemian glass contain none of this last 
substance. It is not known who was the first to discover crystal or flint- 

0 2 


196 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, . 


glass ; it is supposed to have originated in England towards the middle 
of the seventeenth century. In the first instance it was far from 
possessing that cold but absolute transparency which chiefly charac- 
terizes it; it was, on the contrary, somewhat black, which was owing 
perhaps to the use of coal fires. Even now, notwithstanding their 
enormous outlay, the crystal works of Baccarat use nothing for fuel 
but pine-wood, which is conveyed by the River Meurthe, in whole — 
trains at a time during heavy rains and floods. The first furnace for — 
the making of glass on a basis of lead was set up in France in 1784, 
in the same place as had sprung up, forty years previously, one of the — 
first porcelain ovens—namely, at St. Cloud; the glass brought from 
thence were denominated ‘‘ The Queen’s Crystals.” | 

The pre-eminence of the Baccarat productions is due to the excellence 
of the materials used ; the minium is extracted from lead which comes — 
direct from Spain; the potash, which is obtained by the combustion 
of the residues of refineries, is purchased in the north, and again 
carefully refined a second time; the sand comes from Champagne, in 
the neighbourhood of Epernay; and so on for the rest. Thus it is 
especially, too, with their colouring oxides; the oxide of manganese, 
which produces a series of shades of violet, lilac, and petunia tints ; the 
oxide of cobalt, which produces the deep blue; the chrome, apple- 
green ; uranium, yellow, gold, ruby, or rose; and copper, which, being 
itself more or less oxidized, becomes light blue, green, or a sort of 
crimson purple. , 

Nothing is more curious than the process by which the thousands 
of luxurious and useful articles are made which issue forth from 
Baccarat. Let us take, for instance, the making of a decanter; all 
other fabrications only differ from this one in the more or less time 
and trouble bestowed upon them. Let us begin by stating the fact, 
that the blowpipe of which we are about to speak, is the funda- 
mental instrument in the art of the glass-worker. It consists of an 
iron tube, about four feet in length, and a little expanded at one end ; 
with the help of this, in a plate-glass manufactory at Nemours, we 
have seen master glass-makers blow and draw out, when red-hot and in 
a semi-glutinous condition, cylinders no less than seven feet in length. 
One man, called in French the “ gatherer,” plunges his rod into a 
melting-pot, so as to extract from it, or “gather” (the word is 
charming) the necessary quantity of glass; this he takes and rolls 


TABLE GLASS. 197 


out on a sheet of cast iron, called the “marble ;’ then he passes his 
rod to another workman, called the “square-cutter” or “ trimmer” 
(carreur), whose business consists in collecting and rounding the glass 
with the help of a wooden spoon, while an apprentice, who is placed 
behind him, blows gently into the rod. This forms the “ paraison,” 
or bubble of glass. By this time the glass has become cold, so it is 
warmed again at the mouth of the oven, and handed, thus prepared, to 
the “ trimmer,” whose business is to give the decanter its ultimate shape. 
Monsieur Turgan writes :—“ In order to do this he blows into his rod, 
balancing it in the air while he attentively watches the movement of 
the glass, until the paraison attains the given size. When this is 
accomplished, a boy, who is seated near him to seize the right moment, 
is ready with an open mould of beech-wood, the opening of which is 
exactly the size and shape that the decanter is destined to assume. 
The blower then introduces his paraison into it, and, mounted on a 
little stool, he continues to blow into his tube, at the same time giving 
it a rapid rotatory motion. The air expands the “‘ metal,” pressing 
it against the sides of the mould, so that it takes its exact shape. The 
mould is then opened, and out comes the decanter, but the neck of it 
is still shapeless. The blower then returns to his place, rolls his rod 
for some moments on some bars of wood, technically termed, in French, 
“)bardennes,’ and, by means of some wooden blades, he gives the 
finishing touch to the piece; a boy then presents himself, with an 
iron rod, called a “pointil,” or punt, which is fixed by heat to the 
bottom of the decanter, so as firmly to adhere; then, by passing a pair 
of cold pincers at the extremity of the neck, he gives a sharp blow 
which severs the decanter neatly from the blowpipe. Meantime the 
boy, who has hold of the decanter at the end of his punt, carries 
it back to the furnace, in order to soften the neck. This done, 
he takes it to the head man, “chef de place,” whose work it is to 
complete it; with the help of wooden and iron pincers he gives the 
desired turn and shape to the neck, shaving the edges with scissors, 
and rounding the mouth; if it be necessary, he adds cords or handles 
to it. After this the piece is carried in what is called the “ rebak- 
ing arch” (arche a recuire). In this the pieces are put in great 
numbers, in cases of sheet-iron, which are placed at the end of 
a gallery one métre in width and twenty in length; these cases are 
made to work slowly along, so as to take eight hours in going from 


198 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


one end of the gallery to the other; thus they gradually get into a 
cooler atmosphere, the heat decreasing with the distance from the 
end, so that, by the time they reach the other extremity, the pieces are 
completely cold. Lastly, these are conveyed to the carving and 
cutting-room (taillerie), where a finishing touch is given to them by 
means of grinding wheels, which are turned at a great speed, and 
on which are thrown various powdered substances, each finer than 
the last; on the first wheel, which is of iron and simply cuts the 
facets, is thrown a composition of white sand-stone, which bestows 
itself drop by drop; the second wheel is of red sand-stone ; the next 
is wood, covered with pumice-stone; and the last is of cork, powdered 
over with tin-putty. 

The engraving of them, either by means of the hydrofluoric acid, or 
with the help of small wheels made of iron or copper wire, on which 
is sprinkled a certain quantity of emery, gives the concluding touch 
to these pieces, be they glasses, decanters, globes, chandeliers, flower-. 
vases—in short, all glass for household use, or the thousand articles 
destined to satisfy the caprice which fashion has, of late years, taken 
under its protecting wing. 

At Baccarat they can make scene Nothing that the master 
glass-workers of former days produced can discourage the glass- 
workers of the present time. The materials are of a transparency and 
purity which have never as yet been equalled, or even approached. In 
our opinion, this scrupulous perfection is pushed a trifle too far. That 
implacable purity reminds us of the ice of those Norwegian lakes, on 
which Seraphitus and Seraphita are supposed mystically to skate ; it 
were better if this diaphanous surface were relieved with a little 
yellow ; this is what gives that character of harmony and semi-warmth 
to the Venetian and Bohemian glass. But we must admit that when 
placed on a white table-cloth, which looks like a field of snow, our 
table glass shines forth with a brilliancy of reflection which is un- 
rivalled. 


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WINDOW GLASS. 


GREAT MINUTENESS and precision have been bestowed, of late years, 
upon the history of stained glass windows, owing to the fact of its being 
of necessity intimately connected with that of the decoration of 
religious edifices; add to this that, to our modern taste, leaning 
as it does so entirely towards the exact restoration of antiquities, 
it would have been impossible to undertake the rebuilding and 
restoring of our glorious cathedrals of the Middle Ages without replac- 
ing their windows with glass corresponding in style and device with 
the period and character of the edifices themselves. For this it became 
necessary not only to request the manufacturers of glass to adopt and 
revive certain processes of fabrication which, whatever has been said to 
the contrary, were never entirely lost or forgotten ; but it was found 
indispensable that they should be provided with models themselves, in 
the spirit of the times to which these monuments belonged. And, let 
us not be backward to state, that the French mind never showed itself 
more willing, or better able, to re-link the broken chains of past 
ages; never has it more rapidly re-conquered a territory that was 
supposed to be irrecoverably lost. Rather less than a quarter of a cen- 
tury ago, towards the year 1840, the noble secrets of colouring and 
working glass were regarded as utterly lost. Painters were summoned 
from England who knew but little more about the matter than ours 
did; at Sevres, Monsieur Brongniart tried a series of new experi- 
ments... . but now, even in the most humble and modest village 


202 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


church, we see waves of coloured light streaming forth in all the varied 
tints of the rainbow. 

The Romans do not seem to have thought of obtaining large surfaces 
of coloured glass for window panes. The secret of the use they made 
of window glass, properly so called, that is, plain and uncoloured 
transparent glass for the admission of light, has been for a long time 
a vexed question, even among the most learned of learned men; and 
if they have settled it at last, the waste of time and ink has been 
prodigious. One Italian priest fell a victim to it. The unfortunate 
man had condensed in one huge octavo volume, with engraved atlas, 
Preface, Dedication, Notes, Analytic Tables, Index, &., the study and 
pre-occupations of his whole life. He had warmly adopted the views 
of Samuel Petit, who, in his “ Lexicon Antiquitatum Romanarum,’ 
admits only of sheets of talc in lieu of glass panes. ‘Thus he entirely 
denied and refuted the truth of Philo the Jew’s assertion, that, in an 
interview with Caligula, he heard the Emperor give the order to his 
architect “to stop up the apertures with glass.” He foresaw his book 
triumphant! he already fancied himself member of all the academies 
in Europe, amid imaginary shouts of enthusiastic applause! But, 
alas! the very day on which his book appeared, and his presentation 
copies were posted in their various directions, and just when his pub- 
lisher had effected the sale of two copies to foreigners of great scientific 
attainment who chanced to be on their way to or from Naples. . . . 
O rage and disappointment! on that very day the men employed in 
excavating the ruins of Herculaneum came upon window frames to 
which still adhered a piece of glass! This piece of glass was of a 
greenish tint, and thick, but still glass it was! . . . . What would you 
have the deceived savant do? Die of it? . ... Die he really did. 

It is, however, comparatively recently that window glass attained 
any degree of general circulation. For a long time it was rare, and at 
those periods when religious faith was warmest, 1t was reserved, either 
white or coloured, almost exclusively for the house of God. In the 
thirteenth century, im France, in England, and probably everywhere 
else, casements were filled merely with canvas, and a little later on 


with paper. We find in the accounts of Jean Avin, receiver-general 


of Auvergne (1413) :—“ Item for the return of Madame la Duchesse 
de Berry, from Montpensier, whither she went to order certain case- 
ments to be made for the windows of the said eastle, to be fitted 


WINDOW GLASS. 203 


with oil-cloth in default of glass.” .... In Scotland, until 1660, 
the palace of the King, at Edinburgh, had glass only to the windows 
of the upper story; on the ground-floor. the windows were replaced 
by wooden shutters, which had to be thrown open in order to give - 
light and air. Glance a moment at the other extremity of the road we 
are pursuing ; in 1851 the English glass manufactories were producing, 
in the short space of a few weeks, and at the small price of fourpence 
per kilogramme, the 400,000 kilogrammes of window-panes which 
went to form the outer wall and roof of the Crystal Palace ! 

It is probable that the Romans made but a very limited use of glass 
for window panes. In those days houses were so little and so seldom 
occupied! ‘Their whole life, from sunrise until sunset, was spent at 
the bath, in the fields at work, or on the public meeting places. In 
the decline of the Roman Empire the suppers were prolonged in order 
to pass the evening. During the more prosperous years of the 
Republic, on the other hand, the body was so hardened by warlike 
exercises, that it became insensible to the variations of temperature. 
Are we to suppose that in the Empire of Morocco, where Eugéne 
Delacroix states that in his travels he everywhere met with the actual 
and living representation of the manners and customs of the ancients, 
the most luxurious sheik suffers from the chilliness of the night when 
asleep in his tent, and enveloped in his burnous cloak and a warm 
woollen blanket? ‘To the habits formed by the Christian religion 
we must ascribe the development of that most modern sentiment, of 
home and home comforts. 

It is not known precisely where the peculiar artistic glass work 
which, by its numerous and well-distributed colours, transforms a 
window into one large transparent ornament, was first employed. Was 
it on the borders of the Rhine, under Otto II., and towards the end of 
the tenth century ; or only near the end of the eleventh? Or did it 
come from Italy, or from Byzantium, or from France? These are im- 
portant questions from a critically historical point of view, but they 
have not as yet. been satisfactorily answered. It is most probable that 
the French architects, both Norman and Gothic, who were endowed with 
so profoundly true a sentiment for perfect harmony, were tempted to 
fill in their windows with coloured glass for the sole purpose of carry- 
ing on the colouring of the arches and columns, the sides, and even the 
pavement of their churches. It was, as it were, an Oriental, and sub- 


204 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


sequently a Greek and a Roman tradition, this painting, which, with 
the simplest use of the palette, converted a plain ceiling into a sky 
spangled with stars, and which seemed to cover walls with elaborate 
tapestry, and to inlay in the pavement mosaics realizing the highest 
dream of an ambitious architect. 

The first window panes, however far back we may tiene them, cer- 
tainly consisted of glass coloured collectively by means of dies, and 
not painted on the surface and singly, as was done later on; these 
repeated boldly the relative transparency of mosaics, throwing into the 
churches the most intense, as well as the most transitory and moving, 
subdued light. 


NUN 
eel 


SPECIMENS OF GOTHIC GLASS. 
(Primary style. Perpendicular and Flamboyant.) 


The most ancient church windows known—although there is good 
reason to think this is an art essentially French—are in Bavaria, in 
the Abbey of Tegernsee ; a certain Count Arnold had presented them 
at the end of the tenth century; they were ae by a monk heated 
Wernher. 

The monk Theophilus, who wrote probably iu ‘ihe end of the 
eleventh century, and of whom we shall further have occasion to speak 
in our chapter on Enamels, gives a recipe for “painting on glass,” 
with the help of a brown enamel. This is a mode of procedure which 
it is important to note. The colouring tones of that time were red, 
blue, yellow, green, and lilac or purple. | | 

In our opinion, the stained or painted glass of the thirteenth cen- 


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WINDOW IN THE CATHEDRAL OF ST, DENIS. 


(From a design by M. F’. de Lasteyrie.) 
Page 204. 


i; 


WINDOW GLASS, 205 


tury has attained the acme of perfection. It consists chiefly of simple 
medallions, representing quaint legends, scenes of austere sanctity, 
miracles, episodes in every-day life, graphically represented with the 
most candid and simple expressions ; the principal outlines are almost 
always marked by that narrow line of lead, which serves to consolidate 
as well as to unite the parts; but this process, which would seem 
barbarous, in no way shocks the eye; one gets accustomed to that 
wide line which traces the outline, and the black shadow which runs 
through all the parts of the design seems to be a premeditated and 
indispensable ingredient of vigour. In the cathedral at Bourges there 
are, at the end of the apse, several specimens of window glass of the 
thirteenth century, which have descended to us in a state of almost 
perfect preservation; when, after spelling out with difficulty the 
legends in old characters and dialect which belong to them, one passes 
on, and then looks back, they appear like a marvellous vision of pris- 
matic beauty, in which red and blue shine out and mix together, 
throwing out rays as of a waving flame. No words can adequately 
express their effect, at once so splendid and so subdued. No human 
work can inspire the soul with a holier and more religious awe. Our 
readers know the saying of Napoleon, when in the Cathedral of 
Chartres :—“ An atheist can feel but ill at ease in this place.” 

The three rose windows on the portals of the transepts of Notre 
Dame de Paris take rank as the finest flowers of this mystic garden. 
The windows of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, which was built by order 
of St. Louis in 1145, by Pierre de Montereau, have been preserved until 
our time, and such was the perfection of the materials used, that time 
has in no degree lessened their briliuancy. But man often proves 
himself to be a more destructive agent than either wind or rain. At 
the end of the Revolution, the Sainte Chapelle was appointed to be 
the receptacle of the government archives. Cupboards and desks 
had to be erected for the greater convenience of these scribbling 
gentlemen. Nearly four yards of the lower part of the windows 
were ‘taken out and given over to whomsoever would take them! 

Our century has done its best to repair this piece of van- 
dalism, and from the cartoons of Monsieur Steinheil, Monsieur Lusson 
has executed a series of compositions which coincide exactly with the 
effect and style of the pieces of window glass to which they are destined 
to form the sequence. _ 


206 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Large figures belong to the fourteenth century. At Chartres we see 
gigantic and terrible figures of apostles and prophets, lightly draped 
in tunics of severe fold, with gestures stiff and angular, standing out 
devoid of any tenderness or softness, their eyes round as those of 
a falcon, steadily fixed on the beaming brightness of the heavenly 
Jerusalem, their whole aspect at once ecstatic and sombre. . . . The 

impression which they leave on 
the mind is that of sublimity and 
grandeur. They seem like the 
miniatures in some colossal bre- 
viary —some Byzantine Psalter 
framed and bound in stone and 
iron. In them we see the Chris- 
tian faith in its rudest and rough- 
est form, but not a vestige of 
civilized life. This characteristic 
austerity is somewhat softened, 
however, by the figures of fe- 
male saints, whose youthfulness 
and simple grace is still unat- 
tained by any other school of 
art. 

The figure of St. Catherine, 
which we here reproduce, meek 
and resigned, yet full of ardent 
faith like the flower which, though 
it bends with the wind, yet steadily — 

turns its face towards the sun, is 
a one most touching specimen of 


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century. | 
The actual window, in its 
original form and size, is in the 
church of Tournay ; but we have 
the good fortune—and it is unprecedented, for we know of no other 
copy—to be in possession of the small rough model of it, originally 
prepared by the painter himself, that is to say, the piece of glass on — 
which this predecessor of Van Eyck’s—at least such we suppose him 


WINDOW GLASS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
(in M. Ph, Burty’s collection.) 
® 


WINDOW GLASS. 207 


by his style and ingenuity to have been—sketched out his first 
matured scheme, which his pupils have since carried out for the purpose 
for which it was evidently intended. I believe it to have been the 
work of a French master; but no Italian painter, even of this period, ° 
could have designed it with a firmer hand or a more delicate brush. 
It looks like a statuette standing in a niche of pure blue. The ground 
is blue, with a slight indication of black ornamentation about it. The 
wheel which St. Catherine holds, her sword, the sleeve of her inner 
garment, her curly hair, and the glory round her head, are of gold. 

And this is what lends additional value to this particular specimen ; 
it was in the first half of the fourteenth century that the golden 
yellow was discovered, an enamel colour which, when applied with a 
brush, greatly simplified the work ; up to that time it had been neces- 
sary, in order to imitate gold for any special garment, head-dress, or 
some particular piece of furniture or ornamentation, to cut out pieces 
of yellow glass and surround each one with a framework of lead. 

This new discovery, then, was made apropos. About this time the 
glass-maker’s art was emancipating itself from the sanctuary and 
making its entrance into palaces and the houses of rich merchants. 
Germany and Flanders betook themselves to it, and Cologne Cathedral 
has bequeathed to us reminiscences and examples of that sumptuous 
Renaissance, which are as true and faithful as could be the pages of a 
ehronicle. This was at a time when workmen of all the Guilds of 
Ghent were so numerous that, by the gift of only a farthing from 
each one of them, a sum was collected sufficient to erect a church 
in honour of the Virgin. A mere traditional prosperity, however. 
At Bruges, during the ceremony which took place of endowing Philip 
le Bel with the coronet of a count, the Queen of France was unable 
to repress an expression of vexation at the wealth and luxury dis- 
played by the ladies of her court: “I had thought,” she said, “to 
have been the only queen in this place, but I find here hundreds !” 

Italian Renaissance supervened to mollify the art which stood its 
ground in France, especially during the fifteenth century, and too often 
it was rendered by it affected and mannered. 

Then it was that the picture—the combination of landscape with 
figures and of groups—triumphed in windows, and the idea of a 
decorative combination subject to certain rules, to produce certain 
aspects as a whole, was, if not abolished, at least greatly modified. 


208 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


The Roman school, imperious and pedantic in its conscious succession 
to the great masters, waved all superior dictation, and was no longer 
willing to accept of the restrictive direction even of architects. Designs 
and cartoons were demanded of patrician painters, who, regardless of 
rule or other authority than their own taste, transposed for the orna- 
mentation on window glass, tapestry, earthenware, or enamel designs, 
which ought to have been exclusively reserved for pictures, : 

The art of cutting glass with a diamond, and that of drawing lead 
out to almost an unlimited extent, afforded larger and wider surfaces 
to glass painters, and of this they took advantage, almost to excess, in 
Italy, at St. Gudule at Brussels, in fact, universally, but perhaps less 
in France than elsewhere. The chapel of the Chateau of Vincennes, 
which is by Jean Cousin, has some very vigorous specimens of this 
style in painted glass. | has: 

One of the finest pieces of glass of the Renaissance style that we 
are acquainted with is at Beaumont-le-Roger, a small town in Nor- 
mandy. The subject is “'The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem,” done by 
some decorator of the Fontainebleau school. The small round window, 
of which we here give a copy, is of the rarest ingenuity both of touch 
and design ; it represents the Angel of Resurrection at the Judgment 
Day, whose elephantine steed is trampling Death under feet, while his 
trumpet-blast is awakening the warrior, the merchant, the pope, and 
the king from the dead, and summoning them to appear before the 
judgment seat of God. | ‘Loe 

But coloured glass was now reflecting its last rays, like those pearls 
whose brilliancy fades and departs, leaving them only the title of dead 
pearls. It was buried in the same grave as the Gothic style of archi- 
tecture, which so well agreed with our climate in its many variations 
of light and shadow. Palissy, who, as our readers will no doubt 
remember, himself worked for the glass-makers, in his “Discours — 
Admirables,” in 1580, deplored in the following terms the miserable — 
condition to which this art of the painters and workers of window 
glass had fallen. He, however, attributes the fact to the great diffusion 
of the article produced, whereas it should have been traced exclusively | 
to the change which had taken place in the social habits and tastes: 
“I beg you, turn your attention a little to glass, which, for having 
become too common among men, has been reduced to so low a price 
that those who make it, for the most part, live more miserably than 


WINDOW GLASS. 209 


the rag and rubbish seekers in the streets of Paris. Both the art and 
the artists are noble; buf many among these, who are gentlemen by 
birth, would fain be plebeians, in order to have money enough to pay 
their rates and taxes. Is this not a calamity to the glass-makers of 
the provinces of Périgord, Limosin, Xaintonge, Angouléme, Gascogne, 


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THE TRUMP OF THE LAST JUDGMENT, 
(Specimen of French window glass of the sixteenth century.) 


Bearnais, and Bigorre? In these parts glass is so reduced in price 
that it is carried and hawked about the streets and villages, by common 
buyers of rags and old iron, so that both those who make it and those 
who sell it have great difficulty in earning a livelihood.” 
From this time forth painted glass became a purely civil ornament, 
P 


210 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


and secular in its subjects. ‘The Swiss adorned the window-panes of 
their public halls, of their taverns, or their country house, with legends 
either gay or sentimental. Here it is, too, that we meet with those — 
figures of stout, fair, and fat old veterans, which we mentioned in 
passing as to be seen on those mugs and goblets of enamelled glass or 
stoneware, together with coats of arms, helmets with extravagant 
plumes, or, again, with charming landscapes. This Swiss glass, which 
is not rare, is almost unsurpassed in intensity and brilliancy of colour- 
ing. Sometimes it will present a fireside picture, together with the 
legend recounted there, while the spinning wheel turns its busy accom- 
paniment. Or else we have a scene in the calm and dreamy existence 
of a scientific man, as he bends over the octavo volume open before 
him, over which the irisated rays of light are playing, and displaying 
the outline of the miniatures it contains. ... . In the Middle Ages, 
stained and coloured glass was the “ Illustrated Bible” of the poor ; 
at the end of the sixteenth century it had become the book of the 
middle classes. - 

The seventeenth century did nothing. Not only did it protest 
actively, violently, and unjustly against all that was “ Gothic,” but also 
it liked to see to the bottom of things clearly. We cannot imagine 
Descartes to have been dreamy or vague in his ideas. Nor surely 
would Louis XIV. have consented to a veil being put over the majesty 
of the sun, his brother ! 

The eighteenth century, however, did better; it resolved, in cool 
blood, to break and shatter coloured glass. It was, as it were, a word 
of command throughout France to daub in yellow (which was formerly — 
the colour of infamy) all chapels and churches, and substitute plain 
white panes for the coloured and legendary glass. 

Then came a lengthened respite. At the commencement of this 
century that Gothic style, which had the power to move Voltaire, was 
so little reckoned as classical, that that school entirely overlooked it. 
It would have been impossible to fill in with painted glass the large 
classical windows of the Church of the Madeleine, which itself was 
intended to be the “Temple of Glory!” It would have made Vitruvius 
shudder, and caused the dome of the Institute to totter on its 
base. 5 
But when the Roman school, with Lassus at its head, stepped for- 
ward to offer its services in the restoration of these venerable buildings 


WINDOW GLASS. 211 


which so solemnly record the past history of religious advancement and 
artistic progress, when was gained the cause which Victor Hugo had 
so ably pleaded in a chapter of his “ Notre Dame of Paris,” after that 
Monsieur P. Mérimée had published his eloquent reports, it was high 
time to re-light the glass-workers’ furnace, and begin to design cartoons. 
Art was no longer one-sided, exclusive, and narrow, as in the Middle 
Ages. On the contrary, the first thought of these generous artists, who 
fought in the foremost rank for its cause, was to consolidate and restore 
those edifices which time and the whims of men had shaken, and to 
complete the works which had been left unfinished, or only partially 
destroyed. Some experiments were made at Sevres, by Brongniart ; 
writers of great intelligence and merit, such as Monsieurs Didron, 
Bontemps, De Lasteyrie, and De Gérente, and later on, Monsieur 
Viollet-le-Duc, set to work to point out the real path to be followed in 
order to obtain effects of colouring as brilliant and as harmonious as 
those of the glass of the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. 

The intention of these trials sometimes proved themselves more ex- 
cellent than their results. Designers received the orders which 
should have been given to painters. The windows of St. Ferdinand’s 
Chapel, the cartoons of which are exposed in the Luxembourg Gallery, 
show Mons. Ingres to have been, at least from the point of view of a 
glass-painter, a master who had especially hit upon the style of those 
Etruscan funereal bits of pottery which seem, from their silhouette 
designs and obscure colouring, to have been made with a view of con- 
ciliating the ghosts of the departed ones. But for grandeur of 
attitude, and the suppleness of the drapery folds, the figures of saints 
and angels of which this series 1s composed furnish us with examples 
of the brightest and best style. It is well known that some of Mons. 
Ingres’ heads are portraits of the members of the royal family ; for 
instance, St. Ferdinand himself is no other than the unfortunate 
Duke of Orleans. 

In 1841, the King, Louis Philippe, gave an order to Eugene Dela- 
eroix for the lateral windows of the Church of Eu, the subjects to be 
St. Victoria, and St. John the Evangelist ; and the following year, for 
the Chapel of Dreux, a figure of St. Louis at the Bridge of Taille- 
bourg. Of these I have seen only the sketches, and they are mar- 
vellously fine ; but a great judge in these matters assures me that they 
are the finest and best specimens of stained glass that our day has 

Ee 


212 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


produced, and I believe him, for the art of the glass-painter must 
necessarily aim at harmony and richness of colouring combined, for 
those tones which are traversed by the rays of light must ever be 
modified and softened by what surrounds them, and all depends on 
the judicious placing in juxtaposition of what are called the supple- 
mentary tones. 3 | 

But before we proceed any farther with this work, we will ask of our 


ST. HELEN. FAITH. 
(Glass windows, by M. Ingres, in the Chapel of St. Ferdinand.) 


readers permission to place before them one page we have quoted from 
a study on Eugéne Delacroix, which was published by Mons. Charles 
Blanc in the “Gazette des Beaux Arts.” Never before in France 
had esthetics been spoken of with so much grace and persuasive 
authority. We have already alluded to the almost mathematical laws 
which rule the division and combination of different colours ; we will — 
now leave Mons. Charles Blane to explain the more or less rigorous — 


WINDOW GLASS. 213 


manner in which these rules are to be observed by artists when 
their instinct has not sufficed to suggest to them the true secrets 
of it :— 

“The ancients admitted of only three primary colours—yellow, 
red, and blue; modern painters limit themselves to the same. These 
three are the only colours which cannot be either decomposed or re- 
duced. We all know that a ray, one of the sun’s, is composed of 
seven colours, which Newton has called ‘primitive ;’ these are violet, 
indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red ; but it is very evident 
that the word ‘primitive’ cannot apply to three of thesé colours, 
which are composite; namely, orange, which is a mixture of red and 
yellow, green, produced by adding yellow to blue, and lilac, which is 
a combination of blue and red. As to indigo, it can scarcely be 
termed one of the primitive colours, for it is nothing but a particular 
variety of blue. We cannot but recognize, therefore, that in nature 
there are but three really elementary colours, which, when mixed in 
couples, themselves produce three other composite colours, called 
« binary’ tones, namely, orange, green, and violet. 

“By combining two of the primitive colours, for instance, yellow and 
red, in order to obtain the binary colour of orange, this binary colour 
will only attain the maximum of its brilliancy when placed side by side 
with the third primary colour not included in the combination. And 
thus, if red and blue be mixed in order to produce violet, this binary 
violet colour will be much enhanced if placed in juxtaposition with 
yellow. So it is also with green, itself a combination of blue and 
yellow, if placed in immediate contact with red. Mons. Chevreul has 
rightly termed ‘supplementary ’ each of the three primitive colours, 
owing to the binary colour which results from each of them. Thus 
blue is the supplement of orange ; yellow, that of violet ; and red, that 
of green; and so each compound colour is the supplement of the 
primitive colour, excluded in its composition. This reciprocal and 
additional brilliancy is technically called ‘the law of simultaneous 
contrasts,’ : 

“Tf, therefore, the supplementary or compound colours be used 
equally, that is to say, subjected to the same degree of depth and 
light, the juxtaposition of them would so enhance them that it would 
prove too dazzling for the human eye to contemplate; but, by a sin- 
gular phenomenon, these colours, which so prodigiously assist the 


214 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


brilliancy of one another if placed together, are instantly destroyed if 
mixed together. Soif we mix blue and orange together in equal 
quantities, the orange not being more orange in reality than the blue 
is blue, the combination destroys both tones, and the result is a kind. 
of colourless grey. 

“Tf, on the other hand, they be mixed in unequal quantities, they 
will be only partially destroyed, and the result will be a species of 
neutral tint—a variety of grey. This being the case, new contrasts 
may be obtained by the juxtaposition of two supplementary colours, 
one of which is pure and the other compound. The proportions are 
unequal, and so one of the colours triumphs over the other, and the 
intensity of the most powerful one in no way interferes with the 
harmony of the two. Suppose now that the same colours, only of 
different degrees of intensity, be placed side by side—for instance, a 
light and a dark blue—an effect will be produced in which there will 
be contrast, owing to the difference of intensity between the colours, 
and harmony from the similitude of tints; and if two portions of one 
colour be placed together, one of which is pure and the other com- 
pound, for instance—bright blue with a grey blue—there will result 
another kind of contrast, modified by analogy. We see that there are 
then divers methods, all different but all equally infallible, for fortify- 
ing, sustaining, reducing, or neutralizing the effect of one colour, and 
that by altering, not it, but the one or ones which are beside it.” 

It is easy to make experiment of these curious observations either 
with a box of French chalks, or with coloured wafers. | 

We all must remember to have noticed how much better a bed of 
scarlet geraniums looks in a park if surrounded with green sward, than 
when it 1s placed immediately beside walks of gravel, or denuded beds 
of greyish earth; we know, too, how difficult it is in arranging a 
woman’s dress so as properly to combine pink with green, and blue 
with yellow, in order to avoid producing a staring effect, which would 
suggest the varied colours of a green parrot to the mind; why, also, 
the brightest shade of yellow is called the rouge of dark beauties,* 
&e. &c. The people of the extreme Kast, the Japanese, the Indians, 
Persians, and even Negroes themselves, instinctively know these facts. 
We see specimens of cigar-cases which the people on the African — 
coast make with plaited reeds, and exchange for glass beads and 


* Le fard des brunes. 


WINDOW GLASS. 215 


brooches from Murano, which are marvels of harmony and vigour of 
colour. 

The people of the West. whose visual organs are notoriously less 
keen, have commissioned their scientific men to seek for those laws 
which nature affords us, with less intensity and depth of colour, how- 
eyer, than in the flowers, trees, birds, fishes, shells, skies, and land- 
scapes of countries under a warmer sun. ‘The artists of the Middle 
Ages, some of them eminent European colonists, had laid aside these 
quaint and hitherto victorious laws solely with the intuition of 
genius. In our modern days the public taste is for colour, while it 
protests against the vagaries of colourists. 

Painters on glass are returning to it also, but still, in our opinion, 
too guardedly. Their windows—I am not now alluding to those 
makers who are artists and archeologists, such as Monsieurs Didron, 
De Gérente, Lusson, and others—are either heavy, or staring and 
gaudy; they offend us as does an instrument just out of tune. This 
has given rise to the belief that all the old secrets and methods were 
lost—an erroneous one, inasmuch as chemistry has replaced certain 
elements by ingredients whose effect is far more certain, and which do 
not require that.mysterious handling and arrangement which had 
once to be communicated from ear to ear, and whispered in the work- 
shops—an expedient no longer possible at the present day. The 
specimens of beautiful modern glass are now too numerous for us to 
mention any in particular, at least without the risk of bemg unjust to 
the rest. 

A rival school, however, and one which has the pretension of being 
in more perfect possession of the spirit of the age, is that of Mons. 
Maréchal, of Metz, which consists in the transformation of a window 
into a picture, and that of a picture painted as far as is practicable by 
acknowledged current methods. In our humble opinion this is a 
mistake. The tones of colouring, reproduced by the transparency of 
glass and reflected light, can never be the same as those in nature. 
The more you multiply them so as to produce the numerous and 
subtle tints of a countenance, for instance, or a drapery or landscape, 
the more you modify or intercept the light, while you gradually 
arrive at an artificial or incomplete result irritating to the logical 
mind. | | 

We only say this, however, with regard to the theory of the matter ; 


216 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


for, practically, MM. Maréchal, father and son, are artists of great 
merit, and whose conscientious endeayours and earnest belief in the 
correctness of their scheme entitle them to the highest esteem. They 
are the authors and makers of these huge windows which are placed 
at both ends of the centre part of the Palais des Champs Elysées, and 
which prove our critics to be right. They fail to be decorative, 
because they aim too much at imitating real pictures puoi in fresco 
or in oil colours. 

Another artist, Mons. Bieuhul has better succeeded in dicing 
the difficulty, by filling large surfaces with bold tints, and reserving 
for details those supplementary colours of which Mons. Charles Blane 
has just taught us the use. The works of Mons. Steinheil have now — 
become very numerous. He is one of our purest designers, and an 
artist of superior merit. As a painter, he is gifted with the most 
delicate inspirations, and the way in which he can render the joys and . 
sorrows of private life denotes a tact and a power of observation quite 
peculiar to himself. In his restoration of the windows and mosaics of — 
the Sainte Chapelle and many others besides, he has betrayed the 
most rare of all qualities, that of being thoroughly acquainted with 
the schools anterior to his own, as to their spirit; their form, their 
style, and their detail, and yet never to be guilty of plagiarism. He 
fulfils, in a reverse sense, however, the words of the poet: 


“ Sur des pensers nouveaux forger des vers antiques. . 


It is not only in France, but also in England, Germany, and 
Belgium, that, in the last few years, have sprung up artists and 
artisans of quite a new order. It is long—and yet scarcely thirty 
years have elapsed—since the factory of Mons. Bontemps at Choisy-le- 
Roi produced, amid shouts of applause from an admiring public, the 
first good quality of red glass, coloured on one side only; a sa | 
unitation of the finest bits of ancient red glass. : 

We have already had occasion to mention the revolution that is in 
store for the art of painting on glass owing to the use of hydrofluoric 
acid. Since it is possible to cover one surface of white glass with a 
plate of glass of another colour so that it exactly adheres to it, surely 
by means of this acid a means will be found of conveying colour to 
the plain white glass so as to produce a most varied and perarene | 
style of design and decoration. ie 


Zz 


LEZ 


TT 


LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN'S GATE, 


(Window of St. Germain I’ Auxerrois, executed by M, Oudinct from a design by M. Steinheil.) 
Page 216. 


WINDOW GLASS. any 


Who knows whether our mirrors will not one day be ornamented 
after this fashion? This method is in no way impracticable; all 
that now remains is to discover the means of fixing the decoration 
to the substance. Thanks to the means of melting glass, there is 
now scarcely any limit to the dimensions of plate-glass; for in- 
stance, at the factory of St. Gobain. The total production of 
plate-glass in Europe in the year 1860 was no less than 835,000 
square metres. 

The more life becomes difficult and feverish, and the smaller the 
space and height of rooms and houses, especially in crowded towns and 
cities, the more also we require large windows, both for the admission 
of light and air. They help to give us at least the semblance of 
liberty ; though it is but an illusion, it lends a graciousness to our 
life. An increased amount of light to the body seems to add serenity 
to the soul. 

It has often been asked in what consists the resemblance or parallel 
merit of modern industrial art as compared with that of the Re- 
naissance? It is true that they are, in many respects, surpassed in 
minuteness of detail, the conditions of manipulation and requirement 
in the modern day having altogether changed and been displaced ; 
but how frequently do they absolutely triumph in their general 
result! What more resplendent than a modern table covered with 
crystals, cups, and glasses, increasing or decreasing in size as do 
the pipes of an organ, bottles, flower-glasses, flower-stands, bowls 
and dishes for fruit? What is so effective and grand as those tall 
mirrors of seyen or eight yards high, which double the size of a 
reception-room and the number of its lights three and four fold? and 
what more gracious to the eye and senses than a boudoir early 
divided from a green and flowery hothouse by a transparent piece of 
plate-glass, while snow-flakes are falling outside, unconsciously in- 
creasing the sense of comfort within ? 

We are told that the most ancient glass factory in England, one in 
Lancashire, at Raven-Head, was built to rival that of St. Gobain. 
An English admiral, angered by having been refused admittance there, 
tempted over one of their workmen, and founded the manufactory 
which is still standing. England now produces 350,000 square métres 
of plate-glass yearly. More than three-quarters of this quantity is 
used for windows, the rest for mirrors; for the English, putting their 


218 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


own construction on the fable of Apollo vanquishing darkness, held 
that “light is the murderer of spleen.” 

Here, again, we see the law of external decoration combined with 
that of internal ornament with regard to houses and dwelling-places ; 
usefulness walking side by side with beauty. Is not this a sign of 
progress ? 7 7 


What is enamel, and which are the denominations adapted to designate its principal 
varieties ?—Were the Egyptians acquainted with it, or did they only use coloured 
pastes ?—Enamelled Etruscan jewels—Cloisonné enamel of the Ohinese—The 
cloisonné of the Byzantines—The monk Theophilus, and his “ Treatise of Indus- 
trial Arts ’’—How cloisonné enamels are made—Champlevé enamel—The French 
Renaissance, and the enamel painters of Limoges—Nardon Pénicaud—Léonard 
Limosin; his portraits and decorative works—Pierre Rexmon—Jean Courtois— 
The decadence of enamel—Jean Petitot, and his portraits at the courts of 
Charles I. and Louis XIV.—The progressive process necessary for the pro- 
duction of an enamelled plaque—The cloisonné enamels on crystal of the Renais- 
sance—The enamelled porcelain of Paris and of China—Varnished cements— 
Photography applied to enamels—Painters’ enamels, executed by Mons. Claudius 
Popelin—The modern application of enamel—Conclusion. 


ENAMELS. 


Tr has been thought that the word “enamel” was originally derived 
from the Hebrew expression of “ Haschmal,’ used by the prophet 
Ezekiel, but perhaps he meant thereby to designate a metal. The 
low Latins write it “smaltum,” the Italians “smalto,” the Germans 
“Smeltzen,” and the French “¢émail,” which is the same as the 
English “enamel.” ‘This is all that even the most learned in such 
matters have yet been able to discover on the subject. What work- 
man was the first to use enamel? and in what century did he live? 
The answers to these questions are scarcely better ascertained. 

Enamel is actually glass more or less coloured with metallic oxides, 
either opaque or transparent, which, after a considerable amount of 
baking, absolutely adheres to the metallic plate, be it copper, iron, or 
glass on which it is placed. 

But as there is a vast difference in its various applications, they 
have been classed into sections, namely, “clovsonné and champlevé 
enamels ;” that is to say, the enamel is introduced into movable cloisons 
or partitions of metal fastened edgewise on the surface of a metal plate, 
or it is inserted in spaces cut out (levés) on the field of a plate with a 
burin or flat graver; also painted enamels, that is to say, the enamel 
spread over the surface and painted at the whim and fancy of the 
artist, and presenting tints in harmony, and allied with and to one 
another. 

Everything goes to prove that the cloisonné enamels are the oldest, 


222 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


and that they are of Oriental origin. The champlevé embossed 
enamels are only a new development of the same, which was intro- 
duced in the eleventh century by some able German workman, and 
was known and practised much before this, both in England and 
at Limoges. The original idea was, no doubt, to imitate inlaid or 
encrusted stones of great value, or even bits of solid and coloured clay 
fixed in their places when cold into partitions of metal. 

It has been denied that the Egyptians, who themselves were such 
clever glass-makers and Ceramic artists, were ever acquainted with the 


WOTAIN, : 
TFAOTALAN 


1 
aS rTUVITTT Looe 
(Ga rst 

i All 


EGYPTIAN BRACELET IN GOLD, ENAMELLED. 
(Munich Museum.) 


art of enamel; at any rate, it is probable that they practised it but 
seldom. Among the almost countless number of sacred utensils and 
things for daily use, which have at different times been excavated in 


their necropolis, but few have i identified as being soe bits of 
enamel. 


How is it that a people so devoted to indestructible arts ever a 


neglected so precious a one as this? 
Whether the partitions of the delicate and minute bracelet of the e 
Munich Museum, which we. have reproduced above, were filled with 


ENAMELS. 223 


melted glass, or else with a species of mastic, could only be ascertained 
by chemical analysis.* 

The Greeks and Etruscans were cognisant of enamel, even of that 
which was termed painters’ enamel. The Campana collection at the 
Louyre possesses some funereal crowns which are ornamented with 
small enamelled flowers; also some 
swans, peacocks, and doves, executed 
with such neatness of hand as to indi- 
cate that the art was then in current 
practice. The process in these is pro- 
bably the same as that of the Renais- 
sance jewels, on which are represented 
chimeric figures and heroic combats. 
We will further speak of them in 
connection with the Chinese painted 
enamels, and the enamels of Limoges. LHe Ne See Soa 

The origin of enamel is, then, a (Etruscan jewellery. Campana collection.) 
most delicate question, and we have 
not the adequate means of answering it satisfactorily. We will start 
from its entrance into Byzantine territory. What first brought it 
into existence? Most probably it was suggested by the desire of 
imitating pieces of cloisonné enamel which were imported from Persia, 
India, or China. Apollonius of Thyane, the famous thaumaturgist, 
writes, “that when on a tour through Asia, he saw at Taxil, where a 
prince reigned over the kingdom of Porus beyond the Indus, a temple, 
the chancel of which was worthy of all admiration. On each of the 
walls were fastened large plates of brass, covered with historical 
scenes. The heroic deeds of Porus and of Alexander were repre- 


* T have now before me an Egyptian gold-enamelled amulet, of oval form, repre- 
senting in relief a lion-headed deity crowned with the orb and asp, wearing a hood 
and a semicircular breastplate with three rows of enamel, the inner being of plain 
dark lapis-lazuli enamel, the middle of round gold bosses filled in between with opaque 
white, and the outer row of gold triangles on dark-blue enamel ground. 

This very interesting specimen (belonging to Mr. W. H. Forman) differs essentially 
from both the cloisonné and champlevé enamels; being formed of a thin plate of gold 
with repoussé design, backed with the usual Egyptian blue earthenware or frit, of 
which the small deities are made, but unglazed. 

The enamels on the front are unmistakeably vitrified, and by the aid of a magnify- 
ing glass numerous globules of melted enamel, which have not incorporated with the 
mass, may be distinctly seen on the surface.—Ep. 


224 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


sented on copper, silver, gold, and black brass. . . . These various 
materials, united by means of melting heat, had the effect of colours.” 
Can we take these to have been anything but enamelled surfaces ? 

But what may perhaps most have struck the imagination of the 
Greeks of the lower empire (though the fact of their being of so early 
a date has been much contested) were those plaques, coffers, libatory — 
vases, and drinking-cups of cloisonné enamel made by the Chinese, 
in delicate tints of rose-colour, green, blue, and yellow. Rivers run 
across them, decked with open water-lilies and large peonies ; monsters 
stride along them, rolling their eyes and twisting their backs, showing 
their sharp and pointed teeth. The vase we here reproduce we have 
copied from one which is in the collection of Mons. E. Galichon, — 
editor of the “Gazette des Beaux Arts,” and it is one of the finest we 
know of. Every detail of it is admirable; in shape it need not shrink 
from competing with the severest of Etruscan vases; the hues and 
tones on it are as harmoniously blended as are those of an Indian 
shawl; the material even, which is rendered slightly rough and 
uneven by the bursting of small air-bubbles during the process of 
baking, retains the light while it softens the harsher reflections it 
receives. The disposition of the handles, which are formed of heads 
of monsters, marks, as we have remarked already with regard to 
porcelain, the care with which Oriental artists relieve the monotony 
of a mere outline. 

The Byzantines must have accepted these models the more will- 
ingly, because they reminded them of those mosaics of which the 
Romans were so fond, and that they themselves executed with such 
rare and minute perfection. Do not the interstices of little cubes of 
marble, thrust into the mastic, answer to the partitions of gold which 
divide the different colours? Perhaps also the aim of the first 
Byzantine enamellers was to alternate on their shrines and reliquaries 
figures of their saints in polished but uncut stone. 

Under Porphyrogénéte, Byzantine was full of it, and yet the Byzan- 
tine cloisonné enamels are very rare, no doubt, as we will further 
explain, because they were made in a gold plate, and when, in the 
sixteenth century, the painted enamels were in the height of fashion, 
they shared the fate of all that is not new and fashionable. ey 

It is only within the last twenty years that our learned men 
have lent it any attention, and have given it the special name of 


s, 


L1UG 


McUTALLAL 0 


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NESE CLOISONNE ENAMEL VASE. 


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ANCIE 


”3 Collection.) 


mile Galichon 


E 


(In M. 


Page 234. 


KENAMELS, 22% 


cloisonné. One of the most ancient examples of it—the date of 


which has been approximately ascertained—is the celebrated iron 
crown, symbolic of the Italian dominion, which was offered to the 
cathedral of Monza, by Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards, who 
died in 625. The largest, however, and the most complicated, is the 
“ Pala d’Oro” of St. Mark’s, at Venice, the frontage of an altar where 
the enamels themselves are dimmed by the fire of precious stones, and 
the multiplicity of pearls with which they are surrounded. This com- 
bination of plaques and statuettes in relief was made, at least a part of 
it, at Constantinople, for the doge Orseolo, at the end of the tenth 
century, which was so hard and sad a one for Italy, and which, on 
the other hand, brought Byzantine art to its highest perfection. Some 
covers of missals, also some sword-sheaths, and the ornaments and. 
gloves of Charlemagne, are preserved at Vienna among the imperial 
treasures. 

The monk Theophilus—-his country, and even the period at which 
he lived, is unknown—has bequeathed to us a pamphlet of the most 
interesting sort, on the industrial arts of the Middle Ages. From it we 
will here borrow a few details on the process of making the cloisonné 
enamel. His book is called “ Diversarum Artium Schedula.” It is 
believed that he was German, and that he lived at the commencement 
of the twelfth century, when the art of Oriental artists showed such 
independence, minuteness, and force. Hight of his manuscripts are 
known; the most complete of them is at the British Museum, in the 
Harleian Library. It treats of the preparation, the mixing, and the 
use of colours in wall-painting and painting on wood and on parch- 
ment; also of the fabrication of glass, of stained windows, of vases 
in clay, and of enamelled pottery; of goldsmith’s work and of 
cloisonné enamel; and lastly, but less amply, of sculpture on ivory, 
of the casting of bells, and the construction of organs. Besides being 
a practical work, it is evidently intended to inspire the souls of artists, 
and. to encourage them to ornament the house of God with the fruits 
of their genius; which house was so miserably plundered during the 
hard years of the tenth century, when all humanity had popent that 
the very world was about to be extinguished. 

A plate of metal, gold, or copper was prepared, and the edges of it 
were turned up, in order that it might retain the enamel; then the 
shapes and outlines of the figures to be reproduced were drawn out 

Q 


226 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


upon it, by means of narrow bands of metal placed edgewise upon the 
field or surface. Such are the iron bars which surround painted 
panes of glass. This trellis-work was fixed to the plaque, and the in- 
tervening spaces or partitions were then filled by means of a small 
spatula, with pulverized or only slightly wetted enamel, which were 

to represent the flesh, drapery, or groundwork of the picture. Then 

the whole was placed on a sheet of iron and put in the furnace, where 

the heat, which was great enough to melt the ground glass, but not — 
the metal, liquefied the contents of the little cells or compartments, _ 
which were then refilled if the surface was not found to be uniformly 
smooth. After this the whole surface was submitted to a series of 
polishings, which smoothed both the enamel and the metal of the 
divisions or cloisons. 

This process, which is described in almost the same terms by Ben- 
venuto Cellini, in his “ Traité de lO with regard to filigree 
is the same as now in use. 2% 

The palette of the Greek artists was very rich and very fine. They 
must have had a keen knowledge of the effect produced by the imme- 
diate juxtaposition of two colours, for (except in colouring faces) the 
colours never touched one another, and in consequence there was never 
any running of one into another, however slight it might be. 

The process called champlevé, only differs from the one we haye 
described (the clotsonné) in the preparation of the plate. The burin 
or flat graver dug out of the surface of the plate all the portions 
which were to be filled with enamel, avoiding those parts which were — 
to form the outlines. From the earliest days our forefathers appear 
to have used it. Fibule and rings, discovered here and there at dif- — 
ferent times in France and in England, leave no doubt on the subject. 
Philostrates, the Greek rhetorician, who lived at Rome at the begin- — 
ning of the third century, at the Court of Septimus Severus, wrote 
on the subject of the bits and bridles of the horses which were ridden _ 
at boar-hunts: “They say that the barbarians of the ocean borders 
spread these colours on large surfaces of brass, greatly heated; to 
these they adhere and become as hard as stone, retaining the design ¥ 
originally traced upon it.” The vase,in bronze, which we here re- 
produce from a chromo-lithograph in the “Histoire des Arts Indus- 
iriels,” by Monsieur J. Labarte, was found in England. It was 
subsequently destroyed by fire. From the simplicity of its form, 


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ROMANO-GAULISH VASE, IN BRONZE ENAMELLED, 


(Found on the Bartlow Hills. Drawn by M. J. Labarte.) 


Pave 226. 


HNAMETLS. 227 


the useful shape of its handle, and the chasteness of its ornamenta- 
tion, it is easy to recognize in it the work of a Gaulish enameller.* 
Hither through its being brought to perfection, or simply carried on 
by the artists of the borders of the Rhine and by those of Limoges, 
the process permitted the execution of plaques of great dimensions, 
figures, and designs in high relief. They supplied the enormous 
demand for reliquaries and objects for religious services, which occurred 
at the return of the Crusaders, in order to contain reliques of saints 
and martyrs. In the museum of Cluny and in that of South Ken- 


THE ANGEL AND MARTYRS. ; 
(From the collection of Prince Czartoryski. Cologne champlevé enamel, thirteenth century.) 


sington, in the treasures of different churches, and even in the collec- 
tions of the humblest amateurs, one meets with a great number of 
crosiers, chalices, crosses, and reliquaries, in the form of churches 
with transepts and names, custodes for portable altars, figures of doves 
which were suspended over the altar, and which contained the conse- 
crated wafers, vessels for incense, and the covers of the gospel books and 
clasps. In Westminster Abbey, have we not seen a whole tomb 
enamelled throughout? It is that of William of Valence, a colossal 


* Tt was discovered in an excavation 02 the Bartlow Hills, Essex.— Eb. 


Gn 


228 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


sarcophagus, which, when the sun shines upon it, looks as if it had 
been carved out of a block of gold. 

Enamel and illuminated manuscripts are all we have left of the his- 
tory of painting in these obscure periods. It must not be thought, 
however, that it is only under this title that these plates have the right 
of admission into the collection of an earnest and serious amateur. If 
their aspect appears too often to be barbarous, it is because we are in 
the habit of meeting with works of commerce. But here and there 
what gleams of robust and refined art we encounter! . How tender 
and victorious is the attitude of that angel who is bent, and, as 1t were, 
soaring down like a bird of Paradise on the furnace whose flames are 


SS aaa S——._ STA 
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At Kt 
SOTAIN.SC 
THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. 
(Champlevé enamels of the French, fourteenth century.) 


miraculously sparing the young martyrs, Hananiah, Mishael, and Aza- 
riah! How naively are rendered these two scenes of the “ Flight into 
Egypt” and the “Adoration of the Magi!” These two last plates 
decorate the pedestal of a small statue of the Virgin, in silver gilt, 
offered to St. Denis, in 1339, by Jeanne d’Evreux, the ee e 
Charles le Bel. 

But soon the Renaissance came, and pn being present at the — 
awakening of antiquity, this “Sleepittg Beauty,” whose sleep had lasted 
thirteen or fourteen hundred years, asked the industrial fine arts to 
produce, with new materials, the forms art had assisted her to conceiyve— 


LIMOGES ENAMEL EWER. SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 


(By Jean Pénicaud.) 


Page 228. 


ENAMETLS. 229 


art, the religion and the poetry of life. With the Renaissance first 
appeared the painter’s enamel. 

In the region of fine arts nothing is produced rapidly, or at the first 
attempt. Hach fact, or each triumphant master, has been preceded 
by tentative efforts and forerunners, whose fate it is to be overlooked 
and forgotten. 

The eye as well as the mind requires to pass through graduated 
stages before it embraces the whole of a new 
doctrine. Between the champlevé and the 
painted enamel the interval would be inex- 
plicable, had not translucid enamels, even as 
early as before the thirteenth century—and 
in conjunction with the gradual transforma- 
tions of stained glass—accustomed the eye 
to seek for agreeable colouring in preference 
to the hieratic severity of the outlines. The 
means by which they were obtained were 
placing on the gold or copper, which were 
very slightly scooped out—a thin layer of 
transparent enamel. This is also the method 
with which is ornamented the cases of some 
ladies’ watches, to which we will hereafter 
refer. 

The revolution was deep and earnest. It 
was provoked by the desire, on the one 
hand, of representing exactly the portraits 
or the decorative scenes of which Italy had 
taught France the secret and rapid pro- 
cess, and especially for that common-sense 
economy which is the key to all successive 
transformations in all industrial fine arts. Ae en aia Pane 
Cloisonné enamel had replaced the precious — Gattsams) em OF MOPS 
stones inserted in metal; enamelled plate 
soon supplanted the heavy plate of massive gold and silver of the 
moyen age. Hequiring only one surface of metal, after the fashion of 
the painter who needs but one surface of wood, cloth, or plaster, it 
suppressed intrinsic value and replaced it by ideal value. Feudal 
times were fast dying out. Royalty ruined her subjects much more 


230 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


certainly by inspiring them with her habits of luxury than by confis- 
cating their lands. This new state of society, devoted to pleasure, had 
brought away from the Italian wars the taste for refined and external 
luxury. The painter’s enamel came just in time to garnish the 
dressoirs with ewers and spice plates, and the credence tables and 
oratories with pictures and images of a tenderer character ; to re- 
peat on the surface of furniture and coffers, medallions of Roman 
emperors and mythological scenes, softening, with its liquid hues and 
deeper tints, the jewellery of the ladies and the swords of the men. It 
was a complete revolution in the conventional character of goldsmith’s 
work, as well as in that of household furniture and dress, and it 
was at Limoges that the first’ fuel was put to the fire. 

This movement, if not this invention, of a process to which, as we 
have already stated, the enamels of low-relief and translucent had 
led, dates from the first years of the sixteenth century, and a glass- 
painter of Limoges, named Nardon Pénicaud, seems to have been 
its chief promoter. One of his masterpieces, ordered, there is little 
doubt, by René II. of Lorraine, and which is to be seen at the 
Museum of Cluny, is signed and dated: “The first days of April, one 
thousand five hundred and three.” He was succeeded by several of 
his name, over whom we must pass in order the sooner to reach 
Léonard Limosin. 

The first enamels which are known of Léonard Limosin, who is a 
true and great master in this branch of art, are dated 1532; the 
later ones, which bear the marks of an aged hand, are of 1574. His 
long career produced many a triumphal success. He was painter to 
the King, and we know that at the court of Francis I. and of his 
son, this can have been no sinecure. He painted for the Rosso, 
who decorated Fontainebleau, large ornamental plaques, which the 
Primatice had destroyed; but the portraits which haye been pre- 
served, the triptychs, paintings en grisazlle, figures of saints, cups, 
and bowls, are innumerable, bearing his glorious monogram of LL., 
sometimes accompanied by a fleur-de-lis. In the Apollo Gallery at 
the Louvre we see exhibited in its glass cases a portrait of Francis I. 
as St. Thomas. The portrait of Henry Il. starting for the chase 
with his arm round “Madame Diana of St. Vallier, Duchess of 
Valentinois,” is more maliciously than certainly attributed to him. 
The series of his portraits of kings, princes, and lords, is priceless, and 


HENRY Il. AND DIANA OF POICTIERS. 


Louvre Collection.) 


(Limoges enamel, by Léonard Limosin. 
Page 230. 


f 


eae TN Ame ae 
e A ie 


ENAMELS. aa 


betrays as much the genius of the painter as the adroitness of the 
practitioner. 

The fine profile of Henry II. which we here reproduce was lent to 
us by an amateur of Tours, whose collection is especially rich in 
enamels, Mons. Roux by name. The King, whose aspect is both 
sensual and noble, is dressed in a coat of white, with gold spots, with 
a collar as high as his frill, and over that is a wider and looser 
garment of white, lined with ermine. What the medallion which 
hangs from his neck represents is hardly discernible; but it is 
suspended by means of a thin gold chain. In his right hand he holds 
a dark pair of gloves. His cap, of brown velvet, is ornamented with 
a flowing white feather. His hair is cut short, but his moustache 
and beard are very long. His profile, which is raised on a green 
ground, singularly reminds one of the face of his father, Francis I., 
though it is less the type of a crowned satyr than was his; for 
instance, in the portrait left to us of Francis I. by Titian, and 
especially in the bust of him which now stands in the rooms of French 
sculpture of the time of the Renaissance. It is of the highest his- 
torical curiosity, and one which has been unedited until now, as are 
also most of the objects reproduced by our designers for this book. 

Mons. Léon de Laborde, an excellent judge, has thus characterized 
the style and manner of Léonard Limosin, at the climax of his talent, 
in 1553: “The general effect is brilliant, light, and harmonious ; it 
is relieved and cheered by bright sky-blue tints, and turquoise blue 
sparkling on a shining ground. He is specially distinguishable 
by a tint of bright yellow, which he always puts in the hair, as also 
by pink and limpid flesh tints, which add to the delightful feeling 
of surprise caused by these enamels, and have something of the 
brilliancy of an ever-changing satin. No one knew so well as he 
how to make use of golden touches wherewith to ornament his me- 
dallions or his designs on a black ground.” He has reproduced many 
of the works of Raphael. 

The enamels of Léonard Limosin are tlre most sought for among 
amateurs. Besides their value as historical records, and the vast size 
of the plaques—such, for instance, as those which form the chief orna- 
ment of the chapel in the Church of Chartres—they are living ex- 
amples of the style of furniture and household decoration in the 
time of the Valois, when the love of luxury was at its height. There 


232 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


are in the Louvre a draught-board and a backgammon board, which 
are marvels of style and finish. The squares are alternately of bens 
lucent emerald green, and of white, and on the latter are small figure 

in imitation of antique engravings on stone, etched in black, w 
incomparable distinctness and elegance. What exquisite pieces of 
furniture and what a perfect combination of styles im decoration, 

dress, and ornamentation, they suggest to have existed in the es 
rooms where they were used by kings and princes ! 

It is to Pierre Raymond—who signs P. Rexmon—that we nist 
chiefly attribute the vogue of enamelled goldsmith’s work. This pecu- 
liar branch of art is sufficiently interesting for us to leave Léonard 
Limosin, who himself was chiefly a painter, undisputed possession of 
the orders he received from the court and elsewhere, both for pape 
and the painting of domestic and religious scenes. 

Pierre Raymond’s first works bear the date of 1534, ane the last of 
them that of 1584. He seems chiefly to have been a manufacturer, 
the head and guide of a large and excellent workshop, for we know 
that the nobility of Germany, England, and Holland made their 
purchases of him. Even until, comparatively, lately, the patrician 
families of Artzt and Welser of Augsburg, and Tucher of Nuremberg, 
were in possession of dinner and dessert services, ordered and obtained 
by their ancestors of Pierre Raymond. We have seen a series of 
plates and dishes by him at the Louvre, copied after the composition 
of Etienne Delaulne, the “Twelve Months of the Year.” 

Jean Court, generally known by the name of Vigier, was a de- 
scendant of that large family of Court, or Courtois, or Courtey, of 
which there were several Jeans and one Suzanne, and was more 
immediately descended from a glass painter of La Ferté-Bernard. He 
signed I. C. D. V. (Jean Court dit Vigier). | 

His enamels may easily be recognized by their minuteness of detail 
and the delicacy of their outlines, a great charm of colouring, especi- 
ally in the flesh tints, and a very remarkable power in handling his 
pencil. The most charmmg specimen we know of his work is that 
pretty cup purchased at the Pourtales sale, and which was bought 
by J. Malcolm, Esq, of London, for the considerable, though not 
extraordinary, price of 35,000 francs. Its date was 1556. Its triple 
interest—artistic, historical, and sentimental—ought to have detained 
it upon French soil. It was presented by Francis II. to his lovely 


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HENRY II. 


Roux Collection.) 


imosin. 


. 


(Limoges enamel, by Léonard L 


Page 232 


HNAMELS., 233 


affianced bride, Mary Stuart. On the foot and the cover, a gilt 
‘shield of the arms of Scotland surmounted by. the French crown, 
shines out from the surrounding painting en grisaille. On the ’ 
cover is a figure of victorious Diana, drawn in a triumphal car, 


BETROTHAL CUP OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 


‘(Enamel by Jean Courtois, In the possession of J. Malcolm, Esq.) 


accompanied by her troop of nymphs and greyhounds. Inside 
the cup we find the repast of the gods on the occasion of the 
marriage of Cupid and Psyche, in some respects a copy of Raphael’s 
famous fresco; the inside of the cover is ornamented with four 
superb busts in medallions, surrounded with characteristic arabesques, 


234 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


such as a vine pattern, which runs round the base and foot of the 
exterior of the vase. The amiable princess took it away to Scotland 
with her, a token of remembrance of the husband she lost after 
only eighteen months of marriage life! How this present escaped 
the wreck of time and the revolutions of fashion is a mystery 
to us.* 

The art of painting on enamel passed away with the sixteenth 
century. It perished with the Valois. In his lamentation about the 
“arts that perish,” &c. &c., Bernard Palissy mentions: “ Enamel 
buttons (a truly pretty invention) which originally sold for three 
frances a dozen were finally given away by those who made them for 
a halfpenny a dozen.” Then he adds: “Have you not seen those 
enamellers of Limoges who, for having kept their invention secret, 
were soon reduced, their art having fallen into such poor repute, 
living only on the money their work could fetch. I remember to 
have seen sold at three halfpence a dozen badges which were worn 
on the caps, which were so exquisitely worked, and the enamel so 
perfectly melted on the copper, that no painting could equal the 
charm of them. And not only was it thus once, but a thousand times ; 
also ewers, salt-cellars, and every other imaginable article for the 
table which they had taken it into their heads to make. How much 
was this to be regretted!” These badges were flat pieces of metal— 
or medallions which were worn on the cap; they generally specified 
to which seignorial family the person who wore them happened to be 
connected by whatsoever tie, and this was generally called the “livery.” 
Superstition soon got hold of this custom, however, and convents, 
churches, chapels, &c., sold immense numbers of these badges, on 
which were represented figures of saints, supposed to have the power 
of curing every description of malady possible. 

“The Rape of Helen,” by Martin Didier, after Raphael, is well 
worthy of our attention ; but in this rapid glance at the finest and most 
flourishing periods of decorative art, we have only time to notice a 
few works of the great masters themselves. We will not linger there- 
fore more than to quote those names which figure most frequently — 
in the catalogues of sales or on the most celebrated pieces: nor will 
we dwell upon the plaques signed K. I. P., which have been the sub- 
ject of much discussion, nor before the works of Nouailher, Laudin, or 


* Our engraving only represents the cover of this precious and valued present. 


HNAMELS., 235 


those of workmen who, as late as the eighteenth century, went on 
painting figures of the Virgin with Seven Swords, Christ Blessing the 
People, or representations of St. Thérésa. Minuteness of detail and 
precision of touch triumphed over all other conditions of merit; and as 
our readers reasonably expect that we shall not keep them hanging over 
the examination of certain watch-cases or snuff-boxes, we will pass on 


THE RAPE OF HELEN, 
(Enamelled plate by Martin Didier. In Mons. Charbonnel’s collection.) 


to our own day, after pausing, however, before the name of an eminent 
enameller, Petitot. 

In Mariette’s valuable Notes on Art and Artists of his time, we 
read that Jean Petitot was born at Geneva, in 1607. His father was 
a wood carver. His profession of hand-workman, at a time when it 


236 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


was all the fashion to enrich jewellery and ornaments with subjects 
and figures painted in enamel, gave him the habit of painting flowers, 
leaves, and running patterns with great neatness and facility. He 
went over to England in the reign of Charles I. 

There the King’s jeweller set him to work about a portrait 
which he afterwards passed off as his own work. Van Dyck, 


THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS. 
(Enamel; signed K. I. P. Baron G. Rothschild’s collection.), 


however, insisted on seeing the workman at work; there was no alter- — 


native but to produce the young Swiss. The first portrait by 
Petitot, under the personal supervision of Van Dyck, was that 
of the King. It was marvellously truthful as a likeness, and was 
a source of orders without number to its author. The greatest number 


ee ee ee ee ee 


ENAMELS. oa 


-of his enamels are still even now to be found in England. After 
the tragic death of his august protector, Petitot returned to France. 
In the course of his long career, for he lived to be more than eighty 
years of age, he painted several portraits of Louis XIV., the Queen- 
mother, and the more illustrious members of the Court. P. J. Mariette, 
who was an amateur of much refinement of taste, possessed the por- 
trait of the lovely Countess d’Olonne, after Mignard, represented as 
Diana, and painted by Petitot; this piece of enamel was surrounded 
with an oval garland of flowers, in relief, executed by a very able 
jeweller of that time, Gilles Légaré.* 

The medical practitioner and chemist, Théodore Mayern, also a 
Genevese, was the first who taught him when in London how to mix 
and compose certain opaque enamels, the tones and colours of which 
were remarkable for their freshness and truth. Nevertheless, many of 
Petitot’s medallions are too red. Most of his portraits, worn as 
brooches or on bracelets, have been either broken or irreparably 
scratched. Others, incredible as it may seem, have heen pounded in 
the jeweller’s mortar, because they happened to be painted on a gold 
plate! This reminds one’of the hard fate of some of Jacques Callot’s 
copperplates; after the death of that clever engraver from Lorraine, 
they were sold to the ironmongers, who converted them into saucepans! 

Some of the portraits painted by Petitot are scarcely larger than a 

sixpence. Yet the merit of the design and the precision with which 
it is traced, the face so clearly defined, and the taste of the whole 
thing so good and easy—all these combined leave one no opportunity 
for criticism, nor is the eye at all offended by the diminutiveness of 
the whole. . The triumph of workmanship is quite lost sight of: in 
the spontaneous study of the personal character and temperament of 
him who is represented. It is miniature painting raised up to the 
standard of historical art. The Louvre possesses a very interesting 
series of these. 
_ The portrait of Turenne, in the possession of Mons. L. Double, and 
which ornaments the top of a golden box chiselled by Mathis de 
Beaulieu, jeweller to Louis XVI., is above price. Philippe of Cham- 
pagne himself never painted more elaborately nor yet more simply. 

Petitot’s enamels were on gold; this is the metal of all others 


* This exquisite enamel painting, with its beautiful enamelled frame, is now in the 
possession of R. 8. Holford, Esq.—Ep. 


238 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


which suffers least in the necessary and often-repeated exposure to the 
heat of the furnace; on its surface we find no traces of oxydization to 
produce chemical modifications in the results. In our chapter upon 
goldsmith’s work, we shall see what excellent advantage the jewellers 
of the Renaissance reaped from this fact, more particularly Caradosso, 
a Milanese, of whom Benvenuto Cellini speaks with such warmth. 

Platina is the next best to ‘gold, and for the same reason; but it is 
a dull metal, and somewhat scarce, and so it is but seldom used. Iron 
and cast-iron have the great drawback of cracking and becoming scaly, 
or, what is infinitely worse, when the painting is finished and complete, 
and hag even stood the test of time, under the influence of a sudden 
change of temperature the enamel covering will suddenly burst from 
it with a loud report, and scatter itself in a thousand pieces. 

Copper has always been the most desirable metal, especially if the 
plates of enamel should have to be of any dimension or size. It is 
used in thin sheets on account of its retractability ; but we will describe 
the process by which a plate is enamelled, not merely as we have 
gathered it from books, but as Mons. Claudius Popelin, one of the 
cleverest enamellers of our day, has had the kindness himself to 
illustrate it, time after time, under our very eyes.* 

First, it is necessary to provide ourselves with a very thin and very 
pure sheet or plate of copper, which is called “rosette” copper. It 
must then be bent, so as to be rendered concave on one side and 
convex on the other, so that it may resist the rumpling caused by 
the fire. This is effected with a hammer. Then it is steeped quickly 
into water diluted with a few drops of sulphuric acid, and again with- 
drawn, which operation divests it of that slightly rough surface 
created on it by the first baking. When this is done, the plate is 
polished, and then the enamel, which consists of powdered glass mixed 
with a little water, is laid on by means of a spatula. A cloth is 
then gently passed over it to dry it, and the plate is placed in 
the furnace. We will here quote Mons. Popelin’s own words, to 
describe the sort of oven required :—‘“ The oven is composed of three 
principal compartments, placed one over the other, but each one quite 


* At this very time Mons. Claudius Popelin has, no doubt, completed and published 
a charming work called “L’Art de, 1’Email des Peintres,” which both in text and 
illustration will furnish the amateur with advice, clearly stated in an excellent literary 
style. 


ENAMELS. 239 


independent of the other: these are the laboratory, the dome or 
conical cover, and the chimney.” 

The laboratory a is a rectangular vessel, with a semicircular . 
aperture in front; a door P, also in clay, with a perpendicular handle ; 
a projecting horizontal tablet p, little more than two inches thick, but 


1 A 


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AN ENAMELLER'S OVEN. 
— 
(Taken from Mons. Claudius Popelin’s * L’ Art de l’Email des Peintres.’’) 


extending the whole width of the laboratory, on which the earthen 
door rests; beneath is 1, the place for the reception of cinders, in 
which there is an opening, which may be closed by a movable button, 
to regulate the current of air; a grate of clay z, pierced like a 
skimmer, is placed inside the oven immediately above the cinder- 


240 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


box, and a stopper to fit it is placed on the perforated plate. ‘This 
compartment contains the fuel which, when set alight, quickly burns 
up, owing to the draught from the two circular air-holes situated 
at the sides of the oven. The chimney c needs no explanation. 
The dome or conical ceiling B, which is the receptacle for the enamel, 
is simply a trapezoidal roof, without a base, perforated with holes at 
the top. It fits on to the laboratory, which it exactly resembles 
externally. ‘The stand on which the enamel is placed is introduced 
by the door. The numbers 5 and 9 answer to the tongs and poker, 
the use of which is well known; No. 10 is a kind of iron pincher, or 
scissors, made flat, which are used to take hold of the plates 1 and 2 
when in the oven and hot. ‘These plates are of thin hard earth, on 
which the plate of enamel is placed. 

It is curious to see the enamel turn red after it has been in the 
oven a few minutes, melt, and spread itself in a liquid state, like a 
stick of barley sugar. The ancients made use of charcoal for fuel ; 
now we use coke for this purpose. This yields a heat which is very 
painful to the skin, face, hands, and eyes of him who watches the 
progress of his work and the different phases under which it passes 
into operation. The dust, of which this furnace is full, sometimes 
falls on the plate, which is then of a brilliant red colour, but are of 
no real consequence, and are obliterated in the course of baking. 

When the plate is taken. out, it is evident that it has become one 
with the enamel placed upon it, and which firmly adheres to it. If 
it be found not.to be perfectly smooth on the surface, it is subjected to 
a second baking. 

This operation of the first baking applies generally to that outer 
coating of enamel which covers the reverse side of the plate or portrait 
in progress. This coating in general consists of what remains unused. 
from a previous work, odds and ends of refuse, but for more delicate 
parts the melting or colourless enamel is used, which, from its trans- 
parency, renders visible the rich warm colour of the metal. This 
question of the rougher enamel used in this manner, though unim- 
portant of itself, is of great importance from a historical and critical — 
point of view. In default of more positive information, it indicates 
certain proofs, and the hand of certain masters. ‘Thus, the reverse 
side of the first painted enamels, made at Limoges, are streaked with — 
a purplish brown, which was so thick as to prevent the possibility of — 


ENAMELS. 241 


ascertaining how the plate is stamped, whether with the artist's mono- 
gram or with some other mark. Later on, these reverse sides were 
covered with a very thick greenish enamel ; at a still later date trans- 
parent enamel came into general use. 

Then the side to be painted is taken in hand. 

Lhe tone of the first layer is always dark: either lapis-lazuli blue, 
red, yellow, or violet, of the richest but darkest hue—so dark that it 
suggests the clear, fathomless depth of a lake—dark, but intensely 
pure. . 

It is on this mysterious surface that the artist sketches his design. 
With a brush he first lays one drop of enamel, opaque and white, 
slightly liquefied with oil, which, by means of a needle, he spreads 
quickly and uniformly; this requires great agility and quickness of 
hand, for the oil used quickly evaporates. This layer is destined to 
form the background of the picture, or the shadows of the face to be 
painted, as in the Sevres céladon porcelains we have mentioned in our 
chapter on Ceramic Art. Other slighter drops than these are added 
to them when, in any part, a bright surface is required; this is also 
done where relief is wanted ; for instance, when dealing with a profile, 
on the lobe of the chin, on the cheeks, the bones of the nose, the 
relief of the lips, the projections of the upper temples, or any shining 
lock of hair; in which case, the matter applied being thicker and 
thicker, it necessarily intercepts transparency more and more, so that, 
at last, the ground ceases altogether to be visible. The colouring 
enamels, which are each one less fusible than the last, aré next applied, 
very much as the Venetian painters used their colours, that is to 
say, alternately, in layers of something like paste and coats of varnish. 
The gold is put on with a camel’s hair brush, slightly imbued with 
tragacanth gum. 

Gold, silver, and platina, are the metals which serve as a substratum 
for these spangle enamels (a paillon), which are nothing more than a 
very thin glass placed upon this brilliant plate of metal; as itin no way 
intercepts the light, it leaves the colour of the metal visible, while it 
adds to it a slightly softened and subdued tone. These spangle or foil 
enamels produce the most admirable decorative effect. They have a 
more dazzling and glittering effect than the coloured glass of Venice, 
or even than precious stones themselves: as compared with these 
enamels, emeralds, sapphires, and rubies, although in colour infinitely 

R 


MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


242 
purer, are heavier, and have a sort of sleeping and imperturbable 


dignity. 
We have just stated that all kinds of metal, and even glass itself, 
was a fit substance to serve as a substratum to the enameller. The 


eo. \ 


MIRROR CASE OF ENAMELLED CRYSTAL. “ rd 
(In the Baroness James de Rothschild’s collection.) B 


Renaissance, with its characteristic refinement and taste, used erystal 

for that purpose. By means of this it produced a veritable cloisonné | 
enamel, which term they employed to designate that special kind a 
jewellery ; for it was applied, as shown by the crystal mirror case now 
in the collection of Madame James de Rothschild, chiefly for articles 


ENAMELS. 243 


of small dimensions. The difficulties which this style of workmanship 
presented were infinite. 

First of all, leaves, birds, or grotesque figures were engraved, or 
rather scooped out, so as to be hollow; then a sheet of very thin leaf- 
gold was introduced so as to form a thin lining to the deeper parts 
and the edges; the intervening parts were then filled in with very 
slightly-coloured pastes, so that the gold still showed round the edges ; 
after the baking, during which the work was exposed to a thousand 
mischances, the whole surface was highly polished, after which the 
gold shone out, forming an outline to the different colours, and making 
the pattern look like the finest lacework. 

The working palette of an enamel painter is extremely rich in 
colours. Metallic oxides readily lend themselves to an infinite number 
of combinations with glass. The opaque enamels contain oxide of tin. 
The green, blue, turquoise, red, pearl-grey, blue-grey, orange, aqua- 
marine, and yellow, are attainable either pure or else compound, so as 
to form shades as gradual as the notes of a chromatic scale. The 
light red colour is called in ancient works on the subject “le chef et le 
parangon,” the head of all. It was discovered, according to Benvenuto 
Cellini’s account, by a goldsmith who studied alchemy, and who one 
day found it at the bottom of his crucible, in trying to make gold. 

Unfortunately all these kinds of glass are not equally fusible. It is 
therefore necessary that the artist should be thoroughly acquainted 
with the precise degree of temperature that each one of them will 
stand, without melting one more than the other, and so running into 
one another. When this knowledge is acquired, he places the very 
hardest ones first, the hard ones next, and so on, until he comes to 
the least hard among them. ‘The same plate of enamel may be sub- 
jected to the baking process as often as twenty times. How many 
risks are run in so doing, were it only with regard to the plate which 
serves merely as the basis of the work, and which, as in a case we 
once witnessed, lost its shape and substance when it had reached the 
eighteenth baking ? . 

Those enamels which only require a lesser heat are termed “ porce- 
lain enamels.” These are generally used in modern jewellery. In the 
eighteenth century 1b was used for the decoration of chatelaines, 
the watch, the hook for it, as worn in those days, with the key, charms, 
and scent-bottle attached. They are made with far less risk, and 

RZ 


244 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


may be worked on a much larger and wider surface; on them one 
may retouch his work slightly, thus enabling him to double the 
number of colours used, but, on the other hand, the result is less 
powerful in its effect. The use of this kind of enamel has never 
been laid aside, while the use of great-heat enamels has only of 
late years been resumed at Sevres and in private workshops; only 
latterly have the imitations of those noble enamels of Limoges, 
of which we have spoken lengthily already, been attempted and suc- 
cessfully carried out. At the best of times, however, it is a bastard 
process, which may produce happy results, but which depends more 
on the patience of the artisan than on the talent of the artist. 

Still more has been attempted ; enamel 
has been imitated with a kind of varnish, 
which may be scratched off with the 
finger-nail ; and thus are decorated most 
of the innumerable so-called Persian or 
Turkish articles sold by those itinerants, 
fellow-countrymen of ours, who, with 
stuffed calves, puffed-out turbans, and ill- 
painted faces, used to offer dates and figs 
for sale at the doorways of our houses. 

We believe this to be the very same 
enamel that the Chinese use to decorate, 
chiefly in light tints, tea-pots and tea- 
cups, trays, and even vases of consider- 
able dimensions. There is a peculiar 
charm about these pictures of quaint 
design, which they paint upon those 
polished surfaces, which have a warmer 
and mellower aspect than that of our 
porcelain. 

The action of these ine friends, indad 
together before a country landscape, ex- 


WATCH, HOOK, SEAL, AND KEY OF 


a By Fs plains itself. The little tray which is 

(in the Koule Vi, apie the fellow to it, both of them in our posses- 

sion, represents two young women seated 

at a balcony which overlooks a valley surrounded with blue mountains ; 
one of the women is playing the flute, while the other appears to be 


‘ 


ENAMELS. 245 


singing some melancholy verses of the poet Li-tai-pé:—<The rooks 
are assembled to pass the night: they fly and chatter above the trees; 
they call to each other, and perch in the branches. The warrior’s 
wife sits at her frame weaving brocaded silk; the cry of the rooks 
reaches her through the blinds, which the last rays of the setting sun 
are lighting up with glittermg fire. She stops her spindle, thinks of 
him for whom she waits, and is much discouraged. Then she repairs 
in silence to her solitary couch, and her tears fall quietly like a summer 
shower.” * 

The application of enamel to the photographic process, and of 


CHINESE CUP AND TRAY. 


(Painted enamel.) ; 


photography to enamel, has been attempted. We have all seen those 
photographs of portraits, stuck upon a plate of porcelain, and baked in 
the oven as if they were actual bits of porcelain. This is the most 
durable form that photography, hitherto so transient in its nature, has 


* The Marquis d’Hervey St. Denys, who is himself the able translator of this song, 
the name of which is “'The Cry of the Rooks at Nightfall,’ remarks that in China the 
cawing of rooks is an emblem of conjugal union interrupted and saddened by the tem- 
porary separation of the married pair. 


246 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


attained. ‘To immortalize these portraits, and hand over to posterity 
a faithful and unerring representation of particular landscapes—to 
transmit, as it were, the view itself—is to solve one of the most in- 
teresting problems of philosophy. The substitution of colouring 
powder, that is to say, of pounded coloured glass, for that brownish 
monotonous hue, which in photography is unavoidable, has been tried, 
not without some success. We have seen some very small plates of it, 
which the jewellers insert into watch cases, and the setting of brooches 
in the style of the eighteenth century, which may well puzzle the 
most expert of amateurs. 

This is an important commercial cpening. But the vil importance 
of this discovery, of which Mons. Lafon de Camarsac has made the 
most intelligent experiments with the best success, is the almost ever- 
lasting durability of these portraits. Beauty walking thus arm in arm 
with art, we can only wish that the portraits of all the notable men 
of our time—artists, politicians, literary men, and men of scientific 
attainments, &c. &c., might be photographed and then enamelled, and 
officially collected and preserved. These would be a source of the 
most interesting historical record in after generations. 

But if the enameller’s art is destined in our day to make such 
vigorous strides in improvement, it must be on one condition; which 
' is, that it be cultivated by real and original artists, and not by spurious 
imitators. Whatever a copyist may effect, he can be no more than a 
clever workman; to praise him then would be only to applaud a 
commercial fact. Enamel has a higher aim. In its faithful transcrip- 
tion of a portrait—and Léonard Limosin and some of his pupils have 
amply demonstrated what elevated style it may attain—it satisfies 
the desire of the human heart, which is most seldom complied with, 
namely, that of possessing a comparative earthly immortality. Beside 
a museum of photography, for the creation of which we are now plead- 
ing, should be placed the gallery of portraits we have above suggested— 
portraits not merely of the features but of the heart ; bearing the stamp 
of the character and soul, rendered on enamel by the hand of artists of 
merit and eminence. We should then see the philosopher himself 
come and study this unalterable gallery ; for as Théophile Gautier 
once wrote in a precious sonnet to a contemporaneous enameller :— 


Me oo ie Ae eee 1’émail 
Tel que l’ambre en son or tient la fleur enchassée, 
Contre les ans vaincus abrite son travail.” 


UTI, ve, 
Wad 


\ we “ec 


LABOUR TRIUMPHANT. 


(Modern enamel executed by M. Claudius Popelin ) 
Page 246. 


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ENAMELS. 247 


These verses were addressed to Monsieur Claudius Popelin. If the 
re-invention of the enameller’s art, the practice of which is neither 
very profound nor very difficult, is not due to him, at least it was he 
who re-invested it with honour and renown by restoring to it its 
original object, namely, that of carrying out the thoughts of an artist 
instead of merely serving as an instrument to a common-place trans- 
lator. ‘The works of Monsieur Claudius Popelin have been justly 
regarded and applauded by honest and delicate critics, at the late 
public exhilttions. 

Hard-worling and accomplished, he has grouped in vast composi- 
tions the portraits of poets, sages, and great masters; he has bound 
them togethe: with a general tie, the cultivation of letters and the 
triumph of trith ; he has varied the monotony of a series of profiles 
by relieving their effect with bows of ribbon, inscriptions of scrolls, 
branches of lairel, and figures of children. This year the naked 
figure of Truth which he painted on a blue ground, was at once a 
drawing of excdlent taste and a masterpiece of fabrication. But we 
repeat, however admirably patricians may execute copies, Monsieur 
Popelin has ove: them the advantage of creating compositions for 
himself, thereby sowing a talent and merit vastly superior to theirs. 

These modern »namels have been put to a very ingenious use by 
applying them tc the outside binding of books. Here we see the 
form of a woman with helmet on and coat of mail, standing erect, 
lance in hand, in ¢ defiant attitude, her figure standing boldly out on 
a purple ground. There we see the word Idad in letters of gold, 
surrounded by a vreath of laurel in bright green enamel. Here 
is a figure of Horae smiling, while Théocritus plays the shepherd’s 
flute; there a poet,descendant from the Tchang dynasty, is elaborately 
painting an “ Ode to Tea,” on a sheet of rice paper, or Shakespeare 
reciting the prologw of Hamlet... . 

But the true destnation of enamel, if we are to understand by true 
that which ministers best to the wants of modern life, is decoration. 
Enamel is but the culminating point, the acme and perfection of 
Ceramic Art. Whee the latter has been compelled to stop short, on 
the frontage of houes or on the sideboards of a dining-room, the 
former has outsteppel it, forcing oper the door of the ladies’ boudoir 
or the lock of her jewel-case, taking the poet’s study by storm, and 
ascending the stepsof church altars. Nothing so well as enamel 


248 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


adds softness as well as warmth of colour, soberness, and delicacy of 
tint to the sides of a box or the doors of a book-case. It was with this 
view that the Renaissance made use of it, as is proved by the draft 
and backgammon boards by Léonard Limosin, which we have already — 
had occasion to mention, and which are now in the Louvre collection. 
The “ Dream of Polyphilus” is a charming example of it, present at 
least in the palaces which the refined and sensual imagination of the 
unknown one, who dreamt and wrote that curious book, created : 
“Just above the Queen’s throne was the portrait of a snooth-faced, 
handsome youth, with hair as fair and bright as gold; lalf his chest 
was concealed by a scarf, fastened on the shoulder ; lelow was an 
eagle, with extended wings, holding a sprig of green ‘laurel in its 
grasp; it raised its head to see his face, which was sirrounded by 
an azure crown, whence darted seven rays, most Here worked and 
chiselled in gold and enamel.” | 

All, therefore, that enamel now has to do is to folloy the lead of the 
modern world. It ornamented the reliquaries and heirs: at a 
time when church furniture was of all importance inthe mind of the 
age. Later on, it produced the handsomest possibe description of 
ware next to plates and dishes of embossed gold ad silver. Later 
still, it has endowed women’s ornaments and jewelbry with an ever- 
varying charm and novelty of design. Now it mist enter into the 
ornamentation of the furniture of palaces and grea/ houses. It com- 
bines especially well with dark-red, black, or dark-ltown, such as oak, 
ebony, and hard foreign woods, which modern god taste has con- 
sented to leave unvarnished. In the vast symphoty which is called 
decoration, the part of enamel must surely be tha/ of the violoncello, 
which marks the symphony and gives it significatin and tone. 


ve 


3 
° 
‘ 


[ETALS. 


ZE AND IRON 


The age of stone before the age of metal—Arms and utensils—India and the armour 
of its fabulous heroes—Its poniards—Its spikes for driving elephants—The 
Greeks at the siege of Troy—Agamemnon’s equipment—The iron sword of the 
Romans—The three swords at the Musée des Souverains, and those of the Cabinet 
des Antiques— The sword in the period of the Renaissance—The swords of our 
modern Imperial Guard, and arms of State. 

After weapons, coin—Greek and Roman coins—The medals of the Renaissance— What 
might be done in our day. 

Casting of bronze among the Egyptians, Chinese, and Japanese—The process of casting 
by means of melted wax (cire perdue)—The medallion portrait of Armand Carrel, 
by David d’ Angers—Mons. Barye’s bronzes—The statuéttes and works of art in 
Mons. His de la Salle’s collection—Ornamentation in the eighteenth century—The 
brass ornaments and mountings in the Hertford collection—A furniture sale in the 
reign of Louis X VI.—Gouthieres, the chiseller—A few of the prices realized 
at the sale of the Duc d’Aumont’s cabinet in 1782—The tripod scent-box of the 
Hertford collection. 

Iron, the symbol of work among the Western nations—Creuzot—the painter, Francois 
Bonhommé—The poetry of modern workmanship—The blacksmith and the lock- 
smith in the Middle Ages, in France and in Flanders—Biscornette, Quentin 
Matsys, and Albert Diirer—The Renaissance — Androuet Ducereeau — The 
Chateau d’Anet—The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—The iron gates of 
the new Parc Monceaux—The keys of Mons. Huby, junior—Zine—Singular 
applications of Electroplate in art and industry— Conclusion. 


BRONZE AND IRON. 


Men took the trouble one day to examine some of the pebbles which 
they had trodden under foot unheeded and unobserved, and by that 
act carried the history of their earliest civilization through countless 
centuries back to remotest time. For those were the annals of 
humanity, which the plough turned over in the fields every autumn, 
like the leaves of a book. They were documents engraved and sculp- 
tured, contemporaneous with, and even anterior to, the convulsions of 
the globe, broken by the road-side by common stonebreakers. Grecian 
mythology was careful to commemorate its age of gold, its age of 
silver, and its age of iron; the age of stone alone was forgotten. 

The Bible itself left a wide margin for the researches of attentive 
students. One of the great grandsons of Cain, Tubal Cain, son of 
Lamech and Zillah, is stated to have been the first maker of brass and 
iron implements. What, then, were the weapons with which his fore- 
fathers, when they left the Garden of Eden, repelled the attacks of 
monstrous beasts watching them in the forests or the marshes, on the 
river-banks, and in the jungles? How and with what did they hunt 
for game, or defend themselves from their fellow-men ? 

This plain question had occurred to no one, until the day when a 
more studious observation in Switzerland, Denmark, France, and 
wherever any serious interest became awakened on the subject, re- 
vealed the existence of a race of men who, in all probability, were 
ignorant of the use of metals. An antique race settled among the 
lakes and watercourses which then extended almost all over Europe ; 


——.._e 
: 


en 


252 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


living upon fish and shell-fish ; and using implements for their 
various necessities which were cut out of hard stone or shaped flints, 
and even of crystal; such as their knives, needles, fishing-hooks, 
hatchets, and their lance-points and arrow-heads. ‘The few uncertain 
traces that are left of the habitations of these nations are termed 
lake-dwellings. However primitive they seem to have been, the first 
dim ray of art must have penetrated there, for on some of the various 
things, together with little heaps of empty shells with which they 
used to decorate the doors of their cabins, have been found attempts 
at sketches of their ornaments and the profiles of animals. 

It has even been ascertained by what method these primitive people 
made those hatchets, at one time believed to have been Gaulish 
or Celtic only, and which are of an incalculable antiquity. Mons. 
Troyon writes: “In the peaty deposit which exists at the bottom of 
the Swiss lakes, are found many of these articles, either left uncom- 
pleted or broken by some accident. The piece of stone destined to 
be made into a hatchet, was first rendered smaller by a process still 
unknown to us; the outline of the hatchet was then drawn out in a 
thin line by means of a pointed instrument. This line was gone over 
repeatedly, so as gradually to deepen it. The instrument must have 
been either of stone, or bone, and a hard sand, kept wetted for the 
purpose ; when this line was sufficiently deep, the workman severed 
the article to be made from the main piece by a few sharp strokes, but 
these had to be very cautiously and carefully administered in order 
to secure the safety of the work already so far accomplished, and 
thus the hatchet took its original shape. It was afterwards finished 
off and polished, by means of a large rough stone, which did the work 
of a sharpening lathe.” 

Antlers of stags or branches of wood, bound together by leathern 
straps or a kind of rope of grass, sometimes formed the handles of these 
rough hatchets. ‘The Polynesian tomahawks resemble them. 

In short, the science of the stone age is still conjectural. Many of 
these supposed relics, found and treasured up, were probably freaks of 
nature or the result of accident. Spurious imitators have prodveed 
thousands of them. But in matters addressing the imagination, there 
is not much harm in being deceived ; indeed, it is unkind wantonly 
to distress people who believe they know all about it. Last year a 
rumour went abroad that these bits of flint, so carefully collected by 


BRONZE AND IRON. 253 


archeologists on the plain of Pressigny-le-Grand, were but the remains 
of a gun-flint quarry ! 

These arms and primitive utensils, which from their brittle nature . 
can hardly have resisted rough usage, blows, or friction, and which 
demonstrate the unwearied patience of savage tribes, were succeeded 
by the use of metal, but in its raw state collected in small fragments, 
some of the minutest of which have assumed huge proportions in 
the estimation of modern geologists. By degrees the bits of metal 
became rare on the surface; it was necessary to dig them out or 
search in the beds of torrents. At last some great conflagration 
suggested to man the fusibility of metals, and conveyed to him the 
idea of melting them by artificial means and then of mixing them 
together. 

It is probable that the first tribes which emigrated, like one inter- 
minabie flock of sheep, from the vast plains of India to Asia and Africa, 
met with gold before they found any other metal. The fable of 
Pactolus, whose waters threw up gold as other torrents do sand, has 
only become a fable in our day, after a series of generations had ex- — 
hausted its treasures. No doubt the Ganges produced a similar 
quantity. 

All Indian poems and legends indicate that gold was a part of the 
arms of their fabulous heroes; arms which cast from them as many 
glittering rays as they could inflict blows—a typical characteristic of 
the charming but cruel daggers of these voluptuous nations. In the 
“* Ramayana,” a sacred poem we have already quoted, the arrows Rama 
uses in his gigantic bow decorated with gold, are headed with gold 
or chased, and flaming with gold; in their rapid flight through the 
air they are said to illumine it as with the light of celestial meteors ; 
covered with eyes like the feathers of a peacock, they return of them- 
selves to their quiver, after transpiercing demons. The club of Khara, 
Rama’s giant enemy, is ornamented with circlets of gold. The war 
chariots are made of massive gold or silver. That of Khara, hung 
round with a hundred little tinkling bells, glittered with every de- 
scription of precious stones ; besides which the goldsmith had wrought 
on it representations of fishes, flowers, trees, mountains, the sun and 
moon, in gold, and numbers of flying birds, and stars in silver; the 
pole of the chariot is said to be set with pearls and lapis-lazuli, bear- 
ing upon it the figure of the Queen of Night. 


254 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


India is, perhaps, of all countries, that which has endowed cruelty 
with the utmost grace. Its daggers, with short, sharp-pointed, cutting 
blades, make the most incurable wounds, entering the flesh without 
spilling a drop of blood, and making so slight an external wound that 
scarce a purple trace appears. The most marvellous collection of — 
Oriental arms is in the possession of the Marquis of Hertford. They 
came, for the most part, from the collection of Prince Soltikoff, whose 
brother, Prince Alexis Soltikoff, tells us in his “ Letters of an Indian 
Traveller,” that he used to buy, and send for him to Europe, all that 
he deemed curious and could purchase. We know that the high price « 
demanded by the Orientals for their implements of war is attributed 
as much to the supremely excellent quality of the steel of which the 
blade is made, as to the rubies, sapphires, pearls, and diamonds, the 
jade, and veined lapis-lazuli, enriching the handle; moreover, ats 
are commonly heirlooms and precious family relics. 

Among the daggers which the prince sent to his brother is one 
which a pareonsil friend of ours has both examined and handled. It 
. presents the most singular illusion of blood in its costly setting, for 
on the steel blade is engraved a hollow line, the sides of which 
being flattened form a frame for a number of small rubies, so that 
when the dagger is flourished about the stones glitter like drops of 
blood, as it were always limpid and fresh! From which Rajah, dis- 
possessed and plundered by the English, and selling his thenceforth 
useless weapons to travelling collectors, came this quaint treasure ? 

All is perfect in Oriental armour—the intense degree of sharpness 
of its weapons, which renders it credible that a gauze scarf was cut 
in two by the flourish of a yataghan—the haft showing that the 
hand of the warrior could have been no larger than that of a 
child; the ornamentation so exquisitely damascened or nielloed 
that it resembles a bit of delicate gold lace ; coats of mail finer in 
tissue, and lighter too, than the woollen shirt of one of our modern 
seamen ; helmets which are but a skull cap of metal, leaving to the 
head its elegance and natural delicacy of outline; the almost feline 
suppleness of their pointed blades, light as a feather and covered with 
filigree designs and patterns; the shield made small and round so as 
not in any way to hinder the mounted warrior in his evolutions; the 
bent and graceful outline of the Mahommedan’s sword, in panes like a 
moon’s crescent. | 


BRONZE AND IRON. 255 


In their hands, gold, steel, and iron became ag malleable as the 
softest materials. Among the rarest as well as the most formidable 
implements which made their way into Europe, are the spikes used 
to drive the elephants either to the field of battle, or on the occa- 
sion of any state ceremony. At the exhibition of the Union Centrale, 
one was exposed in the glass cabinet of the Marquis of Hertford, 
which was surcharged with diamonds and precious stones; a little 
beyond it, in the cabinet of the Baroness Salomon de Rothschild, lay 
another of iron, chiselled and inlaid with gold of a portentous aspect ; 
to the handle, which terminates in a lance shape, both sides of which are 
highly sharpened, is affixed the hook, in the form of a semicircle, and 
exceedingly sirong and sharp. It is a notorious fact that elephants 
are subject to fits of giddiness—almost madness—which are utterly 
unforeseen ; they suddenly become furious, overturning all that may 
lie in their path, be it battalions or crowds, no matter what or how 
ereat the obstacle ; they can hear no remonstrance, for no human voice 
seems to affect them, so that the elephant-drivers’ only resource for 
safety is to hit them a hard blow on a particular spot of the cranium 
which happens to be softer than the rest with this formidable weapon ; 
it penetrates to the brain of the infuriated animal, who instantly falls 
to the ground insensible. This hook is a solid piece of iron, covered 
with ribands, pearls, and flowers of delicate and microscopic dimen- 
sions, also figures of tigers and elephants, chimeric figures and birds, 
statuettes of reclining gods and goddesses, chiselled ornaments of every 
description, inlaid and polished with almost ideal perfection. One 
elephant-hook must have occupied the whole lifetime of a man ; it 
may have been the handiwork of some obscure genius, who doubtless 
had not even the honour of himself presenting his elaborate and glorious 
masterpiece to the hand destined to wield it. 

In the East, metals are generally worked in their primitive condition 
and unmixed. The Greeks, and indeed all the ancients, worked with 
bronze, which is a mixture in infinitely variable proportions of copper 
and tin. In the Homeric ages, iron seems to have been reserved for 
agricultural purposes. Bronze is comparatively pliable. The swords 
of Homer's heroes must have been as supple as our fencing foils. This 
may account for the small quantity of blood spilt under the walls of 
Troy during a siege of ten years. The great combats of which Homer 
sings were then, except in the case of a general melée, little more 


256 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


than duels of twos and threes, arising occasionally between the chief- 
tains of the camp and the city. One would be led to imagine, 
too, judging from the abusive language they were wont to shower 
on each other in the heat of the fight, that the combats were arranged 
as in the melodramas of Pixérécourt, and that time was kept—one, 
two, three, four !—also with a fire of sparkles. The fact is, that when 
any one was grazed or hit, lamentations as great were made as the 
manager of a circus would utter if his Prussians, paid at two francs a 
night, were by accident to kill his Austrians outright. 

Let the proverbial valour of these Homeric heroes be what it will— 
and we almost reproach ourselves for laughing at them even for an 
instant—their arms must have been of an infinitely more savage and 
more robust character than our eyes are wont to discern in them as 
represented in the paintings of the classical school. Agamemnon’s 
helmet was adorned with four small bunches of plumes, and with a 
floating mane. This must have looked heroically barbarous, as also 
those bows made of the horns of wild goats. The description given 
us of the shield of Achilles, proves to us to what degree of luxury the 
Greeks brought their apparel—proving, too, the cleverness and ability 
of armour-makers, jewellers, and goldsmiths. Their breastplates of 
bronze, composed partly of copper, tin, gold, and silver, which shines 
almost like gold itself, and is of a gold colour, must have given them 
a dazzling appearance. When the famous Hector is starting with 
Paris for the battle, ‘“‘he stretched forth his arm to his son; but the 
child shrunk back in the arms of its nurse; he was frightened at 
the aspect of his father, and trembled at the shining metal and 
quivering horsehair plume which he saw waving menacingly at the 
top of his helmet. His father smiled, and go did his august mother. 


Then Hector lifted off his helmet, and placed it glittering at his 


feet. . . .” 

Greek armour must have been exquisite. The gods themselves 
fashioned and ornamented them, It was for this that Venus paid her 
visit to Vulean. Their arms were the constant thought of the chiefs ; 
no more costly or acceptable exchange of gifts could be made. 
“ At dawn, Agamemnon girt himself about with sparkling and shining 
brass. First he encased his legs in bright greaves with silver clasps ; 
then he clad himself in the coat of mail presented him long since by 
Cyniras, King of Cyprus, as a token of hospitality. For the great 


BRONZE AND IRON. 257 


rumour had reached Cyprus, that the Greeks were going to lay siege 
to Troy ; on this occasion it was that this suit of armour was given. 
Ten bands of polished black metal, twelve of gold, and twenty of tin, 
traversed the suit; on either side the gorget were three dragons 
rampant, with their heads upturned, on an azure ground, looking like 
those rainbows which the son of Saturn has placed against the rain- 
cloud, and which are a forecast to men. From his shoulders his sword 
hung, glittering with gold nails, and the silver scabbard was slung to 
a belt of woven gold. He covered himself entirely with a shield, 
large, solid, artistically ornamented, and surrounded with two bands of 
brass ; in the centre was a boss of black metal surrounded by twenty 
bosses in shining brass. Around this shield was the figure of a 
gorgon, with savage countenance and revengeful eye; Terror and 
Flight were near it; a silver baldrick was attached to it, on which 
was creeping the figure of a black dragon, that had three heads 
issuing from one neck. Then he placed on his head his crested 
helmet of the four plumes, with the horse-tail flowing from it. He 
armed himself with two tough, brass-pointed javelins, that shot rays to 
the sky. Then it was that Juno and Minerva thundered, to glorify 
the king of opulent Mycene. . . .”* 

None of the relics of these Homeric arms have descended to us. 
The style and outline of these warriors is seen on a few bas-reliefs and 
old vases. These heroes, with their nasal helmets, their pointed 
beards, and almond-shaped eyes, terribly suggest the Assyrian and 
Oriental type. The helmets, breast-plates, and swords, which are in 
the possession of the Museum of Artillery and the Imperial Library, 
were chiefly found in the tombs of Campania, and are of a compara- 
tively recent date. If any energetic amateur should be desirous of 
adopting a truly classical as well as an elegant head-dress, we would 
refer him to a helmet, presented by Mons. Albert de Luynes to the 
Cabinet of Antiques and Medallions, and which is in the shape of a 
Phrygian cap. One fancies the effeminate face of Paris under it. 

The Roman armour is more robust. Art has had to give way to 
practical requirements. With them it is no longer a case of single 
combats or of prosperous marches against a neighbouring people, such 


* “ Tliad,” Canto XI. What we before quoted respecting the departure of Hector is 
from Canto VI. Translated into French by Mons. Emile Pessonneaux. 
S 


258 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


as still go on between the tribes of Algeria. The object has become 
the conquest of the world, and that iron sword which Scipio had made 
in Spain for the use of his legion was the principal cause of the defeat 
of our ancestors, who had only bronze arms to fight with. When 
ambition rises to the conquest of all the known world, it must be sure 
of itsarms; they must be strong, portable, and well contrived. Trajan’s 
column shows the Roman soldier equipped for war. He is neither 
elegant nor brilliant in his attire. The breastplates of Augustus, of 
Marcus Aurelius, and of the Antonines, in antique statues, are only 
pieces of state furniture. It is simply the apotheosis garb for those 
nocturnal reviews of which the German poet speaks. 

And how strange a caprice of destiny is here! This Roman ian 
which achieved every conquest it attempted, which snapped asunder 
the thread-uniting principalities and powers, and spread a Latin 
spirit through two-thirds of Europe, just as, later on, the sword of 
Mohamed and his successors were near penetrating with the Koran 
even into the very centre of France, neither the tomb, the hidden 
riches of the battle-field, nor the beds of torrents, have preserved it 
unto our day; we know it not; rust has devoured it. ‘The point of 
it is formed by a gradual decrease in the blade from about two-thirds 
of its length. The blade, which has two sharp edges, has none of 
the studied, curving, soft, and defiant forms of the Greek sword. It 
is hardly better worth looking at than the plain blade of our foot 
regiments. The handle was of ivory, horn, or wood, but without cross- 
bar or guard of any sort. It was worn on the right side, in a wooden 
or iron sheath covered with leather, and bound round with bronze, 
fastened to the shoulder-strap and belt with four rings. It was 
evidently destined for single combat, partaking chiefly of the nature of 
a knife or dagger, like the Arab’s yataghan. 

Paul de Saint Victor writes: “Of all the offensive arms, “the sword 
is the grandest and the most noble, typical as it is of dominion and 
power. Inall times the sword has been the warrior’s weapon, insepa- 
rable from him; one can as little realize him without it as a lion 
without claws, or an eagle without talons. In the tongue of the Middle 
Ages it is a living thing. It was baptized with all the ceremony of the 
Christian that it was. Charlemagne’s sword was called “ Ao el 
that of Roland, “ Durandal ;” that of Olivier, “Haute Claire ;° ‘ and 
Renaud’s, ‘‘ Flambeau.” 


BRONZE AND IRON. 259 


Sometimes it was a fairy, and she, by her magic virtues, destroyed 
the nets which the necromancers laid in the way of belated horsemen. 
Tasso and Ariosto are full of these wicked schemes. ‘ Who knows,” 
said Don Quixote to Sancho Panza, as they journeyed together between 
a piece of enchantment on the one hand and a violent cudgelling on 
the other—“ who knows but that fortune will bestow on me the sword 
which Amadis wore when he was called the ‘ Knight of the Flaming 
Sword?” It was one of the best blades a cavalier ever possessed, 
for, besides the quality it had of shielding its owner from every 
description of sorcery, it cut like a razor, so that no armour, 
however strong or enchanted it might be, could resist it. “These 
arms are only. bestowed upon knights,” replies Sancho; “squires 
may go hang.” 

The Musée des ean at the Louvre, possesses three historical 
swords, which, by their shape and style of ornamentation, almost 
without your ee what royal hand wielded them, reveal three 
distinct dates of the history of France, as well as the condition of in- 
dustrial arts at three different periods. The first is that of Childeric I., 
gon of Mérovée and father of Clovis, who died in 481. Its thick and 
almost clumsy shape reminds one of the Roman sword. It was found 
in a tomb at Tournay, which then did not as yet belong to France, 
on the 27th of May, 1653, together with some bees, remnants no 
doubt of some royal vestment; a ball of crystal and Childeric’s seal. 
This seal, as by a kind of play of words, was the key-note which cer- 
tified the authenticity of this handful of dust, once a king of France, 
as it had, many ages previously, certified with its stamp the authen- 
ticity of the royal signature. The Elector of. Saxony presented this 
sword to Louis XIV., in 1665, by the hand of the Emperor of Austria ; 
from Versailles it passed into the Cabinet des Médailles et des Antiques, 
and thence it went tothe Musée des Souverains, where it is the first in 
chronological order of the royal arms now extant. The pommel of it 
is finished by an eagle's head, as may be seen in the wonderful aay 
fortis engraving of M. Jules Jacquemart, for M. Barbet de Jouy’s 
book, “Les Gemmes et Joyaux de-la Couronne ;” it is a /proposed 
restitution by this artist which had hitherto ee the shrewd eye of 
antiquaries. 

Charlemagne’s sword is not so well authenticated, besides which it 
was partially restored for the coronation of Napoleon I. 

s 2 


260 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


The third, however, is one of the gallant, hard-fighting blades of 
Pavia, the same which Francis I. gave up: 


“ T,,homme de Marignan, lui qui, toute une nuit, 
Poussa les bataillons ’un sur lautre a grand bruit, 
Et qui, quind le jour vint, les mains de sang trempées, 
‘“N’avait plus qu’un troncon de trois grandes épées !” * 


The blade was so evidently not the original one, when it reached 
Madrid, that another was fitted to it which was about a hundred years 
older. The handle, which is of chiselled gold enamelled in the most 
exquisite taste, has retained the traces of heavy blows, glorious and 
eloquent heralds of battle. 

Besides what has been transferred to the Musée des Souverains and 
the Musée d’Artillerie, the Cabinet des Antiques et des Médailles still 
possesses two historical swords of great value: that of the unhappy 
Boabdil, presented by the Duke Albert de Luynes, and that of Jean 
de la Valette, given him by Philip II. as a reward for his courage and 
valour at the siege of Rhodes. When Bonaparte stopped at Malta, 
on his way to Egypt, the Order conferred on him the dagger; but - 
when the Order was dissolved, Napoleon claimed the sword, which was 
accordingly handed to him, and which he placed in the Cabinet des 
Médailles. ee a ee ee 

The sword is the only weapon of antiquity we have contintied to : 
use. For who knows how long our modern breastplates and steel 
helmets will be able to resist the fire of the needle-gun, itself only a . 
forerunner of still more terrible engines? Our museums, as well as 
our private collections, have assembled specimens of swords of every 
country and of every shape. It would be interesting to trace the 
sword through successive ages ; it clings by its natural function chiefly 
to the battle pages of history; to the artistic page by its guard and 
pommel, and by the shape and style of its scabbard and belt; while 
the greater or less fineness of the blade makes it an illustration of in- 
dustrial progress. For centuries it has been the warrior’s companion, 
in skirmishes as in palaces. To give it up was to surrender one’s 
honour, almost to die civilly by admitting oneself beaten. If it touched 
a plebeian shoulder it at once bestowed on it the title of nobility, 
just as a fairy wand could change a pebble into a lump ‘of gold. In 


* Victor Hugo. 


; ITALIAN SWORD OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 


(Damascened with gold and silver, In the Marquis of Saint-Seine’s Collection.) 
Page 260. 


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‘BRONZE AND IRON. 261 


the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was the staunchest friend of 
man, who, out of gratitude, had it cast by the cleverest blacksmith, 
and ornamented by the ablest and most celebrated artists of his 
time. Albert Direr engraved, on the pommel of Maximilian’s sword, 
a crucifix, which is now among the most valuable of his works. 
Shortly we shall see Benvenuto at work, with all the jewellers and 
goldsmiths of his time ornamenting and chiselling swords and 
daggers. 

“In the fifteenth century,” writes M. Edouard de Beaumont, in 
reference to the rich collection lent by the Emperor to the Union 
Centrale, “the sword, always imposing and sumptuous, allied to the 
reactive tendency of war and the arts, suddenly modified itself both in 
spirit and in its dimensions. In the face of the arquebuse it became less 
ponderous and sharper; the two branches of its cross lose the rigidity 
of their outline, and gradually round themselves in the direction of the 
blade.” From the date of the French Renaissance, and since the time 
of Francis I., the sword was made infinitely more thin and dainty, and 
proportionately less terrible. It has been cleverly and ingeniously 
remarked that ever since 1510, or thereabouts, it turns its point down- 
wards ; that is to say, that whereas, previous to that date, the orna- 
‘ments upon it were so disposed as to be looked at with the point of the 
blade upwards, subsequently it is only decorated with a view to 
inverted examination. 

The marks and signs of the most celebrated armour makers of 
Toledo and Seville are well known. Julien del Rey, who worked at 
Toledo and Saragossa, marked his blades with a crescent, or a head 
either of a goat or a wolf. The process of tempering steel is less 
known ; that is to say, certain manipulations which in these matters 
make the -transition from superlative excellence to mediocrity very 
‘rapid, have only been transmitted to us surrounded with suspicious 
fables. 

Nothing is nobler than collections of arms. That of the Count of 
Nieuwerkerke contains valuable specimens. But there are certain 
swords in the possession of the Marquis of Saint-Seine which are 
unsurpassed. One of these, a black and austere weapon, suggests 
‘sinister duels. Another, on the contrary, whose guard is composed of 
intertwinings as supple as those of a vine-sprig slightly detached from 
its mother vine, is nielloed on silver. The Italian sword opposite 


262 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


belonged no doubt to some gram] nobleman of refined and delicate 
taste, doubtless the friend of poets and artists. The three pointed 
mountains, the representation of which is often repeated in the 
ornamentation, seem to indicate that it 
was made for some member of the 
Albani family; it bears the coronet of — 
a marquis. The Albani, besides the 
three pointed mountains, bore on their 
shield argent., on a band or. a star in 
chief. | 
If we knew nothing of the ferocity and 
cold corruption of the times, it would be 
pleasant to believe that these graceful and 
powerful swords, which so highly adorn 
the already wealthy cabinet of M. de 
Saint-Seine, were drawn from their 
sheath only to avenge the wrongs of 
4%, otphans, protect a princess, or smite a 
Wier tyrant. | 
But it is as well to bear in mind that 
the rapier was the weapon of the duel ; 
its guard has a half spherical shell, 
pierced all over with holes to catch the 
sharp point of the adversary’s weapon. 
The rapier possessed, as it were, an as- 
sistant, a valet, whose business was to 
receive the hardest blows, as well as to 
finish off the conquered enemy, and that 
was the dagger. The chief aim of ama- 
teurs is to discover the rapier and its 
fellow, the dagger, which was called “ the 
left hand,” and which, cast from ‘the self- 
i. same piece of iron, was chiselled and 
MILANESE DAGGER oF CcutsELLED 10N, enamelled by the hand of the same artist. 
eee ion a ine). Tt was held point foremost, the guard 
being underneath. The daggers asso- 
ciated with the swords of the M. de Saint-Seine’s collection are so valu- 
able that some one once remarked to us: “If an offer was made to 


BRONZE AND IRON. 263 


leave me this sword and its dagger, after running my body through 
with them, I think I should be tempted to accept the terms !” 

Under Louis XTY., Louis XV., and Louis XVI, the sword, which we 
have taken as the type of all weapons, because it symbolizes, in the 
suppleness and strength of its blade, both attack and defence, was 
used only as a drawing-room weapon. . Our day, in restoring it to 
certain dresses of high pomp and ceremony, has introduced again the 
art of making the handles of cut steel. The Senatorial swords, those 
of the State Council, &c. &c., are executed with much taste and 
merit. ‘They have only the drawback of being modern. 

Who ever thinks of examining the sword of the officers of the 
Imperial Body Guard? And yet it would be found to be a master- 
piece of proportion and delicate execution: the blade is triangular, as 
strong as a bayonet, handy, supple, and light. ‘These weapons are 
furnished by commerce, whereas the bayonet-swords of the foot regi- 
ments, of the marine infantry, and of most of the cavalry, came from 
the factory of Chatellerault. | 

At the London Exhibition of 1862, the sword of General Bosquet 
was on view, chiselled in gold and silver by Duponchel; the Duke of 
Magenta’s sword, of silver-gilt and fine stones, chiselled at M. Wiese’s 
by M. Honoré; the swords of the Duke of Malakoff and of Admiral 
Bruat, worked with oxidized silver by Delacourt. The weapons of 
other nations, either warlike or ceremonial, in no way approached the 
French in artistic merit, who bowed only before the incomparable pro- 
ductions of India. 

Notwithstanding the rapid progress made by science, the diffusion 
of philosophy, and the daily closer connection of commercial relations, 
it is not likely that, for some time to come, humanity will fling on the 
altar of peace the shattered fragments of the last sword. Would that 
a sword were oftener given as a national recompense! A sword of 
honour is, in most cases, more suitable than the erection of a marble 
statue, to celebrate some person of second-rate merit, whose name will 
be spelt with astonishment by the rising generation. There is scarcely 
a small country town which, having been the birthplace of a soldier 
_ of any note, does not think of erecting a bronze representation of him, 
in his top-boots and cocked hat. Would it not be far more appropriate 
to present his surviving relatives with a sword that could be trans- 
ferred to the elder branches of the family, from generation to genera- 


264 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


tion, as an honourable heirloom? Some such offerings, good specimens 
of workmanship, were made to the Comte de Paris and to General 
Changarnier, and others. Allegorical figures, symbolical of the deeds 
for which they were presented, were carved on the handles, while the 
blade was engraved with inscriptions, intended to perpetuate either 
hope or remembrance, fitted to be laid on a cradle or a tomb. 

If the first use man made of metal was exclusively for hunting or 
fighting, it was with a view to commercial intercourse that he next 
employed it. After the sword came the manufacture of coin, just as 
the merchant follows at the heels of the captain. But this idea 
flourished only when some connection had begun to exist. between 
divers nations. During the siege of Troy, fatted heifers were still 
exchanged for skins full of wine or amphore of oil. Thirty bul- 
locks’ hides was the price of a slave. But in time this brutal barter 
of natural produce, in becoming more general, waxed also more and 
more complicated, until it was found to be almost impracticable. 
The next stép was the exchange of a piece of worsted, dyed scarlet, 
for a lump of metal, which was weighed, and hastily engraved with a 
few imperfect signs. Even now, on the African Coast, negroes will 
give an elephant’s tooth or a pinch of gold dust in exchange for 
brandy, iron, or cotton print. 

We are still far from knowing the first coin made, for, since the 
Renaissance, Greece and Italy have so tyrannically absorbed the atten- 
tion of artists and men of erudition, that a search in the Hast has 
only been treated as a secondary object. The oldest bronze coins 
extant are large and clumsy, with figures of domestic or sacred 
animals indistinctly stamped upon them. They must have repre- 
sented a considerable value, for a man would have been bent double 
with the weight of less than a hundred of them. 

Nothing can equal the beauty of the Greek gold and pur coins. - 
We know that those coins which are arranged so carefully in collec- 
tors’ medal cases, were current coin, and that the Middle Ages and the 
Renaissance were the first to stamp medals. Hardly one of those 
Greek artists who displayed so much genius on a small bit of metal 
has signed it. The letters upon them generally designate the name 
of a town or magistrate, and that, not unfrequently, with a playa of 

words, such as a “‘ rose” for the island of ‘“ Rhodes.” 

Fach piece contains but one profile, that of the personification of 


BRONZE AND IRON. 265 


some town or the portrait of the prince of it, such as Athens’ sacred 
owl, or Alexander, as the horned son of Jupiter Ammon. 

But what a display of nobility and strength! what relief—what’ 
life, in these profiles—in these speaking attributes! what an inex- 
haustible variety of types! ‘There are fifteen or twenty different 
Syracusan coins: all representing the head of a young girl, and in 
the field are one or more raised figures of dolphins, long and 
thin. We cannot but think that the prettiest girls of Sicily must 
have been copied successively, for they not only offer a variety of 
feature, but an entire difference of character and even temperament : 
the dark beauty is there, with large tender eyes, aquiline nose, and 
dilated nostril; the fair one, plump and languid, with rounded cheeks 
and full lips, which suggest the presence of clear, red blood under a 
thin and delicately fair skin. ‘The details of head-dress are infinitely 
varied in these admirable coins, to which the attention is invariably 
drawn, even after the contemplation of other coins, as great in interest, 
and almost of equal elegance and quaint simplicity. 

Ronian coins are also remarkably fine—those, at least, which go 
back as far as the Antonines, after the Republic, namely, the large 
and rare medallions of the emperors. Although they were probably 
designed and engraved by Greek artists, tuese coins keep more closely 
to one particular type, and furnish us with a far greater similarity of 
feature. That scrupulously copied resemblance is the cause of the 
rarity of existing imperial effigies. When some pretorian revolution 
had installed a new sovereign, his first jealous act was to call in and 
melt down the effigies of his predecessor, in the hope, no doubt, of 
evading invidious comparisons. ‘'yranny comports itself according 
to its traditions. Thus, the Egyptian dynasties, which overturned 
one another, caused the noses of antecedent Pharaohs to be hammered 
out, and their names erased. 

The decisive characteristic of antique coins, is found, besides the 
harmony of its design, in the great material thickness of the relief. 
Let the reader pass in review the different pieces of money which were 
current in France only a few years ago, before the general new mint- 
ing took place; all the sous, the pence, half-pence, and farthings 
(liards), and other bits of money, red or whitish, had lost their 
stamp on either side, presenting only a circular bit of copper which 
one might imagine to have been stamped out of the bottom of a 


266 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


saucepan. And here and there, perchance, some tobacconist or 


omnibus driver would hand you, in giving you change, some coin, — 
the relief on which would be astounding to the touch of the finger. It 


was a Roman as: a figure of Augustus, sober-featured and refined ; or 
a Nero with knitted, overhanging brow, and shrivelled nose, and with 
a projecting chin; an Antoninus, with open countenance and affable 


expression ; a Lucius Severus, with curled head and beard; a head — 
of Marcus Aurelius, with his high and projecting forehead; a long- 
necked Faustina, with hair gathered up in long braids; or the face 


of some emperor of the lower empire, lean as an Arab, capped with a 
crown of radiating points, rude and quaint, of a savage and anxious 
expression. . . . These pieces were rubbed and worn ; they had lain in 
the earth, or stuck in walls, or in the beds of rivers, for the space of 


sixteen or eighteen centuries; the hands and pockets of generations — 


had handled and shaken them, and yet neither time nor use could 
wear them down to the common and vulgar aspect of the coin of modern 
times. Coin was the bronze edition of Ceramic art and of sculpture. 
These pieces of money, which bear the nervous and obstinate profile of 
Cesar, reveal his characteristics almost as plainly as the above bronze 
statuette, where he stands erect and crowned with laurel to cover his 
precocious baldness, his cloak thrown back, half a captain and half a 
god; haranguing his troops and urging them forward with the prospect 
of conquering the world and uniting it under one empire. If we. did 
not possess the marbles of the Parthenon—which, by a marvellous 
piece of good fortune, chanced to be the masterpieces of Greece— 
the different specimens of coin would suffice to convince us of the 
entire supremacy of the Greek arts in the representation of the 
human face. 


The thickness of the substance which preserved the lines of the — | 


visage, and the character of the design, helped, therefore, to endow 
the ancient comage with its imposing grandeur. True, it was not 
made with a view to being piled up as ours is. They were struck 
with hammers, in moyable dies; a primitive method unsuitable in our 
days. The exact similarity required between our coins of various 


sizes, the indispensable dryness of the outline in relief, which for some — 


time retards the obliteration of the sovereign’s profile, or the emblems 
presented on the reverse—all these are the work of the machine—a 
series of practical, neat, and rapid strokes, in which Art has no place, 


oe ee 
3 ? 
+ 


ss. 


a eS a 


a 


CASAR HARANGUING THE TROOPS. 


(Roman statuette in bronze. In Mons, Luzarche’s Collection.) 
Page 260, 


aire <n a ace ¢ a= 
7 i eee «| 


BRONZE AND IRON. 267 


but which we are forced to accept. But this method of stamping 
might be used for medals cast and engraved to perpetuate the memory 
of particular great military or political, scientific or artistic, events. 
On certain solemn occasions they might be cast @ cure perdue. 

The medals of Briot, Dupré, and Jean Warin, our greatest medal- 


| 


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, 

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NU | aie —5\\\ oe 
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PR CORR VA? A Soh 7 C Z 
25 Wan, QA a WGar lea \eefaa es © 
O Wn KEL AG) IE NVA 
Go ARN ERR NG 
Bag SL DO 
Oo Gm mm 
VO IQQQOOOPZ 


THE DOGE MARCUS ANTONIUS MEMMO. 


(Medal of the sixteenth century. Cast in bronze by Dupré.) 


lists, were cast, but on a much thicker basis than those of the pre- 
sent day. 

The artists of the Italian Renaissance, intensely taken up as they 
were even as early as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with any 
vestige of antiques which sprang from the dust, as if to protest against 
the profanation they had undergone, used to make casts in bronze 
(which they afterwards engraved with the most consummate skill) of 


268 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


medallions they modelled in wax from their contemporaries, and often, 
also, from original antiques. 

The list would be a long one were we to enumerate the artists and 
sculptors who have left behind them testimonies of their excellent taste 
and thorough scientific knowledge of their profession. It would begin 


ee \eegencanit XN 


VASE FOR SACRED PURPOSES, OF 
* CHINESE BRONZE, 
(In the Duchess de Morny’s col- 
lection.) 


with Vittore Pisano, of Verona (who died in 
1451, and signed his medals Pisani pictoris 
opus—the work of the painter). From Verona 
it would also borrow the names of Matteo Pasti, 
and Giulio della Torre ; from Venice, that of 
Gentile Bellini; from Padua, those of Andrea 
Riccio and Giovanni Cavipo; from Bologna, 
Francia, and Caradosso from Parma. But 
we shall again meet with nearly all these 
illustrious names when we quote the pen of 
Benvenuto Cellini. 

The casting of objects of art has been in- 
teresting in all ages; from the period of the 
first Egyptian dynasties, which carried it to 
a high degree of perfection—a fact which is 
well-established by the statuettes of divinities 
which we borrow from the collection of Prince 
Napoleon—until the present day, when new 
materials have necessarily caused other and 
more summary methods to be employed. We 
shall see in the Memoirs of Cellini the mode 
of procedure for the casting of a large statue ; 
but the general aim of this work does not 
admit of our pausing, at least for the present, 
before statuary, just as in our review of 
armour we were compelled to take the sword 
as an illustration for all pita ees | of 
weapons. , 

Artistic bronzes of small dimensions are 


almost always modelled in- wax, and then cast. This rule does not 
apply without exception. among the Western nations, but invariably 
is it the case in the East, China, and Japan. The accompanying — 
articles form a part of the Duc de Morny’s collection; they are of 


ii) 


=| 
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3 
I 
a 


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& 
wy (Q 


i ey 


AAA 
WU i Hi 


EGYPTIAN BRONZE OF THE BULL APIS, 


(Collection of Prince Napoleon.) 
Page 268. 


BRONZE AND IRON. 260 


very antique fabrication. The little sacred vase, with its accessories, 
is inlaid with consummate art, and made in imitation of the Japanese 
“Sowaas.” It is, however, of more recent date than this straight- 
sided urn, or “ pi-thong,’ on the stem of which are carps swimming 
and slipping in and out of waves: the representation of the scales and 

mere shining portions is as simple and bold as antique objects of more 


ANTIQUE VASE OF CHINESE BRONZE. 


(In the Duchess de Morny’s collection.) 


civilized periods ; the detail of the dorsal fins, which, with a slight 
curve form the handle of the vase, display extraordinary ingenuity. 
This vase is covered with a blackish patina which gives it an in- 
credible richness of aspect. It seems to be carved out of a bit of 
solid rock. 7 | 


The Japanese bronzes are chiefly distinguishable from the Chinese 


aps MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL Ai 


by a much greater specific lightness. Some of th 
hand the most singular illusion ; in first taking them 
prepared to lift a bit of metal, which it finds to be: 


such as baskets or cng light stands, are marvels of truthful x 
duction. The few articles contained in our illustration are s 
of their inexhaustible fancy, and their sincere love of na 


in its bill, and yet it represents but a vulgar candlestil 
long-spouted vase which recalls, though with less sli 
those Persian ewers, has its sides enamelled with porn 


strange to say, is signed with the name of its maker. The scented Bes 
fumes ascend in a blue spiral jet from a hole at the extremity of the : : 
beak. There are, too, some figures of dragons, whose furious contor- Bae 
tions make one shudder, and almost induce one to believe themy a be. 


—with the people, time, and circumstances where, and under which : 
they were berate ; a 


aes in wax. “Bat if it is to ise cele) hie he begins He he ‘ 
a nucleus—as it were the unseen soul of the piece—a massive st ? 
stance made of a very thin clay, very finely broken up and. Rig nde 


* Fonte & cire perdue. 


/ ; | | fy 


1 


PO 


hy Vin 


Page 270. 


SATAIN 


(Ch'nese Muscum at the Louvre.) 


EWER, CANDLESTICK, PERFUME-BURNER, AND TORTOISE, OF JAPANESE BRONZF, 


BRONZE AND IRON. i 


mixture of clay and rubbish, and sometimes of horse-dung ; in French 
it is technically called “potée;” he then covers this with wax, which 
he models into the required shape. When the model is completed he 
covers the exterior of it extremely carefully with layers, getting 
eradually thicker and more compact, of the same “ potée,” whose » 
quality it is to bear a very high temperature. In these he leaves 
slight apertures for the escape of air when pressed by the expansion 
of the metal in a state of fusion, also small openings or jets for the 
introduction of the metal. Then the wax is melted and got rid of, 
after which the melted metal is poured into this well-consolidated 
mould. Of course it penetrates in its liquid state into every corner, 
however small, of the mould, reproducing every detail and every 
trace as faithfully as the human hand preserves the outline of a piece 
of money pressed heavily upon it. Every mark of the mould is ex- 
préssed and copied with the most minute truthfulness; but the piece 
is unique. : 

We are in possession of a small study done after this method by 
David d Angers for his fine medallion portrait of Armand Carrel. 
Besides the singular character of the model, the eye sunk, the straight 
projecting forehead, the square jaw and obstinate mouth, one is struck 
with the curious appearance which this piece of bronze itself presents, 
‘the size only of a five-shilling piece. The delicate touches of the model- 
ling tool; the tender finger-touches on the upper part of the cheek ; the 
suppleness of a lock of hair, whieh is thrown back, as was the fashion 
in 1830; the high relief of the neck; the boldness of the signature, 
which seems to have been written in the wax with a sharp-pointed 
needle ; the visible emotion which David felt in reproducing the head of 
a friend so early snatched away from him ;—all this strangely suggests 
to the mind those magnificent etchings by Rembrandt—heads which 
seem to breathe and to think. 

Monsieur Barye’s bronzes—whether statuettes or figures of animals, 
or even that equestrian statue of Napoleon I., which was despatched 
to Ajaccio before any one had had the time or opportunity of inspect- 
ing it in Paris, are cast in sand (a sable) with the most elaborate care 
and minuteness. They will remain among the honourable monuments 
of this century, too many of which have, for some years past, fallen the 
unwilling victims of cheap imitations. Without venturing to allude 
to them in an artistic point of view—the merit of which is great and 


272 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


absolutely new in style, well deserving of special study—let us merely 
mention that these figures of centaurs, groups of Theseus overcoming 
the Minotaur, Louis XII. crowned with Italian laurels, and romantic 
amazons, elephants, tigers, horses, lions, crocodiles—in short, all this 
work, so simple, correct, and powerful, is from the point of view of the 
workmanship admirable for precision. | 
The art of casting has always been carried to perfection in France. 
Cellini considered the casts ordered by Primaticio to be made in France 
from moulds he had brought from Italy for Francis I. to be equal to 
antiques. The casts by 
the brothers Keller are 
very superior to any that 
have been done in any 
other country. | 
The most esteemed sign 
by which to recognise a 
cast of real merit, and one 
which is still visible even 
beneath that patina, or 
oxidation, wherewith time 
covers it as with a mag- 
nificent varnish, which 
varies from dark to tur- 
- quoise blue, is the fineness 
of the epidermis or coat-_ 
ing. No process can suc- 
cessfully compete with 


——— : i that by melted wax (c7re 


OANDLESTICK IN ITALTAN BRONZE. 
(Sixteenth century.) 


perdue), which we have 
described above ; and this 
the Italians well know, for they adopt it not only in making busts, but 
also for their statuettes and medallions, and even for articles of 
current use, such as candlesticks, inkstands, jewel-cases, &c. &e. 

As a matter of course, the first scheme of an Italian artist, be it for 
an equestrian or merely for a standing statue, the first rough model, is 
made in this manner. Such is the model of the Perseus by Cellini, at 
Florence. Also that charming miniature edition of the statue of 
Colleone, by Andrea Verrochio, which is now in M. Thiers’ collection. 


BRONZE AND IRON. 273 


Our modern artists have laid aside this process, so exquisite in 
the delicacy of its lines, and have substituted for it the method of 
modelling in clay or potter’s earth. 

The real taste for the bronzes of the Renaissance dates only from a 
few years back ; so we may 
still hope to see these pre- 
cious specimens obtaining 
prices that are worthy of 
their permanent merit. The 
reign of Louis XIV., with 
its borrowed enthusiasm for 
third-rate Italian masters, 
had corrupted popular taste. 
Our modern amateurs, how- 
ever, are more just, and 
according as admirers fall 
away from Guido and Al- 
bano, so the more robust 
schools of Florence and 
Milan rise in public esti- 
mation. Equestrian statue by Andrea Verrochio. 

The bust of Brunacci (In M. Thiers’ collection.) 

Rinaldi, which is so life-like 

and energetic in its character, was bought by M. Géréme, Member of 
the Institute, at the close of the Exhibition, for a sum which ten 
years hence would have increased tenfold. M. His de la Salle, an 
amateur of the highest as well as of the most comprehensive good 
taste, has combined in one collection antique coins, bronzes of the 
Renaissance, drawings by Poussin, and lithographs by Géricault, 
some of Angelo di Fiesole’s paintings, and the complete works of 
Gayarni. He was telling us one day the price he had given for some 
of his Paduan medals and bronze plaques. It is about equal to what a 
good lithograph by Raffet or one of Seymour-Haden’s etchings would 
fete es) What a profound knowledge both of the emotions of 
the soul and the attitudes of the body is visible in this Italian art 
of the sixteenth century! and how striking is the combination of 
tenderness and power in this figure of Charity warming and fondling 
those plump and noisy children ! 


SMALL ROUGH MODEL OF THE COLLEONE, 


sis 


274 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


The different methods of casting necessarily vary with different 
metals and their degree of fusibility. For instance, it is evident that 
the treatment of copper cannot be the same as that used to make an 


ihe ae be: 

l a 4 Zt. 

Fg a Zo = 
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DUX GHIRELUNO RV: ROCCI/E AC VLLLEPELL 
COE «EXNIPOSANI- VOLOCNANO DOMI ER: 
AL-BRVACCLORV EANES AGONE! 


AT BVEYM A UL Ol'GioiKes 


ari 


BUST OF BRUNACCI. 


{Florentine Bronze of the sixteenth century. In M. Géréme’s collection.) 


article of tin. Processes differing in essentials have been, and are 

still, much used, such as repoussé work on tin, for instance, or that of 

chiselling on iron. . i) 
We will mention this again in reference to locks and keys. But for 


BRONZE AND IRON. 275 


decorative articles which require moderation in price, and yet careful- 
ness in execution, such as candlesticks, clock-stands, door-handles, 


as 
l 


( 
Sy 


; : 


CHARITY. 
(Italian Bronze of the fifteenth century. In M. His de la Salle’s collection.) 


&e. &e. the chiseller’s work steps in both to modify and perfect 
the appearance of the copper when it comes out of the mould. 
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced marvels of this 
T 2 


276 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


kind. The ornaments on this candlestick by Martincourt are entirely 
pierced and chased with a graver. 

Among the most beautiful specimens of 
copper ornamentation, as’ to its size and 
quantity, is the justly-famous commode 
in the Marquis of Hertford’s collection. 
It is one of the masterpieces of the art 
of the middle of the reign of Louis XV., 
a period when French furniture espe- 
cially aimed at uniting suppleness and 
elegance with richness and weight. It was 
made by Philippe Caffieri (whose signature 
it bears), brother to that sculptor to whom 
we owe the fine busts, and especially that 
of Rotrou, which adorn the as of the 
Théatre Francais. 

It is said that no less than 38,000 franes 
(£1520) was given for this single piece of 
=. furniture, which, be it added, is as con- 
venient as it is luxurious and well contrived. 
(Chiselled by Martincourt, Eighteenth These modern prices apes to us to be 

century.) high; none, however, but these rare bits of 

eighteenth-century art will fetch them. 

Nevertheless, they were no more than the prices of the eighteenth 

century, and prices paid for orders given directly to artists. Why 

is this not more generally done in the present day? Calculating 

money at three times its present value, which is about the average, it 
will be seen that we have not been guilty of exaggeration, 

In the month of December, 1788, the sale of the Duc d’Aumont’s 
collection took place after his death, at his hotel in Paris, in the Place 
Louis XV., the valuation being made by P. F. Julliot, jun., and 
Ane: Paillet, well-known experts of that day. This sale realised 
175,071 francs and 17 sous. The collection was famous for its curious 
specimens of every description and valuable furniture; the experts, 
perfectly reliable men—Julliot especially, who has left behind him 
some very curious notes upon Japanese, Chinese, and Indian porcelain 
—stated, on issuing the catalogue to the public, that “this collection, 
illumined by the lights and productions of most distinguished artists, 


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BRONZE AND IRON. 277 


was the most precious result of natural good taste that had been made 
public for some time past.” 

“ This collection,” they went on to say, “ contains columns, tables, and 
vases, in which the value of workmanship and the beauty of form are 
united to great richness and rareness of material, all having been copied 
from the ancient monuments of Rome. Among them are many of 
those esteemed porcelains of many denominations, ancient Japanese, 
ancient Chinese, of céladon, sky blue, or violet, &. &e. ; ‘pagodas,’ 
interesting chiefly from the diversity of their character (pagodas were 
among that numerous family of gods, or Chinese personages, which 
Louis XIV. was wont to call—together with the pictures of Teniers— 
‘des Magots’) ; French and Saxon porcelain of the best style ; precious 
cabinets of old lacquer; bits of buhl, and inlaid furniture of no less 
value; candelabras, lanterns, and branches copied from the best pos- 
sible models, in gilt bronze, mostly by Gouthieres.” 

Gouthieres, of whom we know but little, was chiseller and gilder to 
the king, and his invention of mat gilding made the fortune of 
French bronze mountings throughout Europe. As a chiseller he has 
perhaps been equalled—for our time has produced artists of in- 
eredible ability—but as an inventor of subjects and as an arranger 
none have come up to him. 

The Duc d’Aumont’s passion was for vases, either antiques or of 
antique shapes, made of hard and rare material. He sent for them 
from Italy, and had them mounted in Paris. Some of the articles at 
this sale which we will here mention will furnish matter, for those of 
our readers who may be well acquainted with the prices obtained at 
recent large sales, for curious comparisons. We again recommend the 
tripling of the sums we indicate, in order to obtain pretty nearly the 
actual value. ‘To this it will be found necessary to add the five per 
cent. which, contrary to all reason, is in modern days always charged 
to the buyer by the auctioneer as his commission. 

Among the “ vases and columns,” then, I find two vases of porphyry 
of the very finest quality, in the shape of urns, ornamented with rams’ 
heads, projecting and cut in the block itself on either side, value 
14,522 francs. They were three feet six inches in height. The 
engraving of it (for, with a degree of conscientiousness and care little 
carried out by auctioneers of the present day, the catalogue is orna- 
mented with thirty aquafortis engravings, representing the principal 


278 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


articles for sale) denotes a characteristically-shaped funereal urn. Two 
columns of antique green marble, eight feet high, surmounted by an 
Oriental alabaster vase, in the form of a scent-box, and placed on a 
round stand, the whole mounted in brass and copper by Gouthieres, 
15,801 franes. 

Most of these articles are unknown to us, but here is one which has 
survived. The description given of it in the catalogue is a most 
faithful one; the following are its principal characteristics, but to 
those who did not see the original at the Exhibition the best idea 
will be conveyed by the excellent engraving of it by M. Jules 
Jacquemart. A round cup or bowl of floriated jasper, worked in ribs 
and flutings, supported on the heads of three fawns, and terminated 
by three cloven feet ; the brackets of this tripod are twined about and — 
joined by wreaths of vine-leaves and grapes; inside is visible a 
serpent, just emerging from the tailpiece, which is under the bowl, 
darting forward, the head upside down, twisting itself into a spiral 
shape to reach the fruit which hangs in a cluster from the centre of 
the base; the whole placed on a circular plinth, also of floriated 
jasper. “This piece,” adds the expert, ‘‘ precious for the rareness of 
its kind, the brightness of its colouring, and the neatness of its work- 
manship, is relieved yet more by an ornamentation of the most in- 
genious design and the most excellent taste, with which M. Gouthieres 
can ever have found himself inspired. It is a masterpiece of artistic 
talent.” It was bought for the Queen for the sum of 12,000 francs. 
It is the now famous jewel-box of the Marquis of Hertford, who 
gave for it no less a sum than 30,000 franes. The sums therefore 
are comparatively equal. It is in reality an article of considerable 
value, if, laying aside and placing ourselves above school prejudices, 
we judge it only by an artistic standard; by the trouble and care 
expended by the artist upon it; by the costly rareness of the material, 
and the surprising competency of the instrument that fashioned it ; 
and, lastly, by the perfection and force with which it produces a 
résumé of the fashionable taste of a particular period. Hither we 
must altogether suppress the eighteenth century, or else, having 
agreed to its courtesy in discussion, its politely satirical horror of 
pedantry, and its elegant and wholly French appropriation of an- 
tiques, we must recognise and admit that this article “presents to us 
a masterpiece of art.” 


BRONZE AND TRON. 279 


By searching deeper into this catalogue we find two vases of 
antique Japanese céladon, for which were paid 7500 francs. A 
“ Magot,” or knickknack, a little bent, on a grey ground, with light _ 
blue short trousers, and a curiously folded cap on his head, carrying 
a beggar’s pouch, fetched no less than 2400 francs; but besides the 
very rare quality of the material of this article, the catalogue called 
the reader’s attention to “his cheerful countenance, which produces 
in one an agreeable sensation.” In another place a monkey seated, 
with its legs outstretched, “the most amiable of its species, evident 
from its perfect quality and the truth expressed in its character,” 
was bid for as high as 1399 francs and 19 sous. This amiable 
animal previously passed its life in the cabinet of M. de Jullienne, 
Governor and Director of the Gobelins, and the personal friend of 
Watteau, who bequeathed his designs to him. Most of the-Chinese 
porcelain had originally belonged to His Royal Highness the Dauphin, 
son of Louis XIV., “‘ who liked this beautiful style, and had made 
himself a collection worthy of notice.” Other articles, again, came 
from M. Randon de Boisset, or from the Duc de Tallard. 

We will close this cursory glance at the curiosities of the eighteenth 
century by the mention of two tables of porphyry, ornamented with 
heads of Egyptian women, popular during the whole of the First 
Empire, in the magazines of Jacob, and which, it would appear, were 
invented by Gouthieres, inspired by the literary success of the 
“Voyages du Jeune Anacharsis,” and the pseudo-antique and re- 
actionary attempts of Vienna. These tables were sold for 23,999 francs 
and 19 sous; two others of green jasper, also by Gouthieres, “in the 
Egyptian style,” went for 19,580. Cabinets and cupboards by, the 
celebrated Boule seem to have had not the slightest success. ‘Two 
pairs of branches, surprising in their general effect—they were six feet 
high, and of bronze, covered with dull massive gold—represented 
chiefly, in shape at least, a quiver with branches of roses, ivy, myrtle, 
and a thousand other emblems, arrows, bunches of grapes, bows of 
ribbon, masks of laughing fauns, hunting horns, shepherds’ crooks, 
&e. &e. Each of these pairs, which by candlelight must have pro- 
duced the most dazzling effect, fetched over 9000 francs, which sum 
they had in all probability cost the Duc d’Aumont, when he paid the 
bill of the indefatigable Gouthieéres. 

We shall have further occasion to speak of bronze and ornamental 


280 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


brass and copper in our chapter on Goldsmith’s Work, respecting 
Cellini. We will therefore again take up our chapter on Iron, which 
we have as yet scarcely commenced. 

The greatest industrial conquest achieved by man has been the 
discovery and working of iron. Until the day when he first guessed 
the secret of digging for it in the bowels of the earth, purifying it in 
the fire, and softening it with the hammer, man had walked in that kind 
of enchanted childhood of simple and incurable weakness to which 
Grecian mythology has given the marvellous title of “golden age.” 
They knew no more of life than do the savage or the young child. 
Tron revealed to them a more permanent future, and obligations of a 
graver sort, binding them more closely to that mother-earth, the sap 
of which is found to be less abundant in colder latitudes, and which, 
though-ready to pour out her produce to them, demanded that they 
should be at greater pains to obtain it. Then ensued a gradual but 
steady development of things; the discovery of wheat succeeded that 
of fruits; the spade succeeded the huntsman’s arrow; the wandering 
tribe became a nation, and so on. 

Gold seems, as it were, formed of the solidified rays of that powerful sun 
which bathes the Kast. Rough, dull, stubborn iron, on the other hand, 
is the characteristic metal of those brave races which were the first to 
quit the plains of India, like those new swarms of wandering bees 
which leave their hive, and whose honey tastes of the wild flowers 
which blow on the mountain sides. For a considerable time iron was 
only a symbol of brute force. Alchemists called it Mars; for, in the 
heavens, Mars is that star which throws forth rays of fire of a bright 
orange colour like rust. But now-a-days Vulcan has become the 
chief of a foundry, and Lemnos has been transported to Creuzot. The 
engineer conquers the soldier, and that sword of which we haye been 
relating the glorious mission, twisted and beaten in order to serve new 
purposes, will soon be one of the muscles of Hercules—a wheel in a 
modern machine. 

Tt is high time, however, that we stopped short, and, as we did with 
regard to arms, abstain from speaking of the more colossal applications 
of cast-iron, wrought-iron, and steel, within the last quarter of a 
century. A novel form of poetry is about to proceed from those 
works and factories, which are small towns in themselves, and which 
employ no less than 25,000 workmen, such, for instance, as Creuzot. 


BRONZE AND IRON. 281 


A day will come when some poet, some writer of genius, after descend- 
ing those mines, and investigating those workshops, will be struck 
with the noise of those gigantic hammers, and feel his eyes dazzled by 
the white light which is thrown by melting furnaces; and then a new 
art will spring from the locomotive, the crane, and the column of cast- 
iron, and they will combine to form that harmony which, presiding as 
they do over all that answers-to the necessities of society, is the law 
of industrial beauty. One artist has already applied all the forces of 
his will and of his talent to mark the salient points, and the multitude 
of details which exist in these formidable wholes; this artist is M. 
Francois Bonhomme, whose name it would be an injustice to omit in a 
work like the present. 

Repelled by the classical artists for “cultivating an ignoble style of 
art,” and by practical manufacturers as “ poetical,” he might have 
been tempted to throw the stick after the lost pencil, if he had not 
aimed high in the pursuit of a distinct object, bravely following his 
course, and shutting his ears to the unjust criticisms of indifferent . 
men. With innumerable drawings, oil paintings, specimens of mural 
decoration, large water-colours, and woodcuts collected here and there 
from illustrated works, he has commenced his “ Histoire de la Minér- 
alogie et de la Métallurgie ;” a spirited work, that teaches the double 
art of gathering minerals from the bowels of the earth, and of adapting 
them to the thousand necessities of a modern world. His studies 
combine a consummate scientific knowledge of details with an inspira- 
tion at once simple and poetical. Starting from the survey of an 
engineer, and the implements used by the miner and blacksmith, he 
gives a powerful sketch of the furnaces of Creuzot, with its turf and 
verdure blackened by the permanent smoke of its brick chimneys. 
Too often unjust towards those artists who seek for truth and novelty, 
the public has overlooked, not, perhaps, without understanding them, 
but without rightly examining them, these loyal and courageous 
attempts to ally art with modern and every-day life. 

It is high time, however, that we should witness what the eighteenth 
century would have called “the marriage of Art with Industry.” The 
latter has in great measure, in fact almost entirely, absorbed modern 
attention. War, which in former years inflamed the minds of men 
with enthusiasm, is now hated as an accursed thing; so that we may 
foresee that its days are numbered. The world, however, would 


282 MASTERPIECEHS OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


become a sad heap of confusion if art were altogether excluded from it ; 
but happily this has not taken place, and never can. There will always 
be kindly obstinate natures who will persist not only in pursuing art 
themselves, but in demonstrating it to others. Unnoticed and almost 
unconsciously they will accomplish masterpieces of elegance and power, 
in designing what they only intended to be a plan for a locomotive, a 
steamship, or the erection of a market hall. 

Speculations like these, however, would demand an amount of time 
and space that we have not to spare. I will simply mention the 
Halles centrales, less as a special example than as a starting-point, to 
demonstrate the advantages an architect can draw from the variety of 
new material placed at his disposal by modern industry. No false 


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A BLACKSMITH’S WORKSHOP IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
(From an Italian woodcut.) 


columns, no stucco ornament in imitation of marbles which ancient 
Gaul never produced, but straight and symmetrical lines of small cast- 
iron columns, intertwinings, curves, and groundworks of glass and of 
brick. In our opinion nothing is comparable to this modern building, in 
our country at least, for just use of material and suitableness of aspect. 

The use of iron and of cast-iron—for we know that iron and steel 
are but chemical modifications of the same metal, issuing from the 
same mine—was in the Middle Ages, both in France and in Flanders, 
put to a great variety of uses. The rough art of the blacksmith and — 
locksmith was chiefly carried out there, while the art of the armourer 
was chiefly cultivated in Italy and Spain. 


BRONZH AND IRON. 283 


Unfortunately, iron is too easily oxidised ; rust gnaws into it with 
cruel avidity ; for this reason but few large specimens have been pre- 
served to our day. One of our finest examples is the doors of 
Notre Dame. ‘he hinges spread ont upon the panels, strengthening 
as well as decorating them, with that singular beauty of appearance 
resembling the sea-weed plucked by children out of low-water pools 
and laid out to dry upon paper. They are the work of Biscornette, 
a blacksmith who—at least so his contemporaries affirm—had the 
devil himself for an assistant. This fact was rumoured about a good 
deal to his disadvantage, for one day he was missed, and it was gene- 
rally supposed he had gone straight to hell. 


IRON GATE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY. 
(Ancient collection of Le Carpentier.) 


Mathieu Jousse, locksmith at La Fléche, and author of several 
works which were published in France on locks and hingeg in 1627, 
expressed his regret that the “authors of antique locks should not 
have transcribed their finest secrets—among others,” he adds, “ that of 
melting iron, and casting it, like all the other fusible metals, at little 
cost, which recipe Biscornette took with him.” 

Another much older, but not less beautiful specimen, is the gate 
of the twelfth century which was in the Le Carpentier collection, 
when that indefatigable collector was still alive. ‘lhe chief volutes 
start from a central stem, like branches from one trunk; the other 


284 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


smaller ones are bound together with a cylindrical strap, thus com- 
bining solidity with elegance. At that period, and during the century 
which followed it, gates were made of solid iron; and it was only the 
century after that which began to cut out ornaments of sheet-iron 
modelled and beaten into shape with a hammer. 

From this period also date those short thick keys which, instead of 
a ving for a handle, have a transparent rose cut out in imitation of the 
Gothic windows of a cathedral. The locksmith follows in the path of 


KEYS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, IN WROUGHT-IRON, 


(From the Sauvageot collection.) 
e 


the architect, just as we have seen in our chapters on Ceramic Art and 
Window-glass, tessellated pavement and glass contribute their part in 
a general and impressive whole. } 

This was proved, during the fifteenth century, by the pretty purse- 
clasp we here reproduce ; the locksmith cutting, chiselling, and working 
iron as easily as the goldsmith did gold, was able to imitate and copy 
entire monuments. The fashion of wearing these gibecieres, or purses, 
which were, by means of a chain or a leathern strap, fastened to 


BRONZE AND IRON. 285 


the waist, lasted until the reign of the Valois. The Sauvageot 
collection is believed to possess the mounting for a purse of this 
kind which belonged originally to ' 

Henry Il. Whatever its origin, 
this mounting, which has been suf- 
ficiently reproduced, is worked with 
admirable minuteness. 

Flanders and Germany were in 
no way behind-hand. All tourists 
must have examined the well which 
stands before the door of the cathe- 
dral at Antwerp, and which tra- 
dition attributes to Quentin Matsys 
(1460 — 1530), who, with superior 
talent, was the author of the font- 
cover of St. Peter’s Church, in the 
town of Louvain, where he was § 8} 
born. Tradition, too—always fond of @F 
gossip and malice—asserts that it was 
love which made him lay aside the 
hammer and take up the brush; but 
this is no business of ours. 

Tron was beloved of poets and 
dreamers in these rude times. The most sublime work of Albert 
Diirer, a figure of “ Melancholy,” itself the deepest sigh that the 
breast of an artist ever heaved—an angel, seated, and crowned with 
a box-tree wreath over knitted brows and a far-distant look, in the 
midst of the thousand allurements of which he has proved the utter 
emptiness : 


THE CLASP AND KEY OF A JURSE OF THE FIF- 
TEENTH CENTURY, IN IKON WORK. 


(In M. J. Fan’s collection.) 


“Ce sont des attributs de sciences et d’arts ; 
La régle et le marteau, le cercle emblématique, 
Le sablier, la cloche et la table mystique... .” 


To these the poet* might have added the blacksmith’s tongs. The 
articles held listlessly in her hand by Melancholy—the compass, the 
bunch of keys suspended to her waist, the scales which hang against 
the wall—are of iron, and curiously worked and ornamented. 


* Theophile Gautier, La Comedie de la Mort, 1838. 


286 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


Jacques Androuet du Cerceau,who was a draughtsman and engraver, 
as well as architect, of the sixteenth century, has bequeathed to us a 
series of locksmiths’ designs, whence we have borrowed the above 
illustration. We know that, previous to the scheme of numbering the 
houses of a large town, it was the custom to designate private houses, 
and even the mansions of the nobility and rich gentry, with some 
emblem, externally exposed. So, in the immediate neighbourhood of 
the Louvre, that which subsequently became the Hotel de Nevers 


FRAME FOR AN HOTEL OR MANSION SIGN, OF WROUGHT-IRON, 


_ (From a design by Androuet du Cerceau.) 


had for its sign “The Crowned Lion.” “The House of the Wood 
Pigeon” stood next to the Hotel d’Alencon ; besides these there were 
the “ Croix-Rouge,” “ L’Hpée Royale,” “ La Tour des Bois,” &e. & . 
We specify this work of du Cerceau as being full of interest for 
amateurs that may wish to restore or make up any old bits of house- 
hold furniture in the style, of the Renaissance period. There are 
designs for door-scrapers and knockers. The knocker was applied to 
the exterior of the house-door, and the scraper was reserved for the 


el 
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WROUGHT-IRON DOOR KNOCKER. 


(Oi the time of Henry II. of France. T,ouvre Collection.) 


lage 287, 


BRONZE AND IRON. 287 


doors of the different internal apartments ; these last were ornamented 
with figures of satyrs, bent backwards to meet a loose ring that rubbed 
on their backbones. It also contains _pat- 
terns of keys, large and small, and the plates 
belonging to their key-holes, decorated with 
slim chimeric figures, winged bipeds, part 
woman, part bird, and part lion, twisted into 
numberless shapes ; also handles for doors or 
drawers. 

It is one of these knockers, which have 
almost universally disappeared, and whose 
pompous and ponderous noise has been suc- 
ceeded by the shrill tinkle of a door-bell, that 
our illustration represents. It once decorated 
the door of some royal palace, or that of 
some one allied to the court of Henry II., as 
is proved by the emblems upon it. On the 
lock, its genealogical title is still more clearly 
testified. Above, in the centre of the ribbon 
of the order of St. Michael, are the arms 
of France; underneath, we read the some- 
what enigmatical motto of the King—*“ Donec 
totum impleat orbem.” Poor majesty! who 


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only “ filled the world” with the talent of the MM ee 
artists his court possessed, and the beauty of 4 ¥=¥ oF THe sixtnENtH cun- 


TURY, CHISELLED IN WROUGHT-IRON. 


Diana of Poictiers, whom he called upon them 
to idealize and deify. 

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the art of the 
blacksmith—which, in these few pages, we cannot stop to distinguish 
from that of the locksmith—is still rich in vigour and fecundity. 
The iron gates of the Palais de Justice, as well as those of a thousand 
country chateaux, are a proof of it. We know the numbers of bal- 
conies, balustrades, and banisters, in endless variety, which stand out 
from the sides and frontages, and serve as supports to the staircases 
of public and private mansions; the plates which ornament the back 
of fireplaces and grates ; and the bunches of spikes which are set at the 
end of walls and wooden palings to intercept the progress of enter- 
prising intruders. 


(Sauvageot collection.) 


288 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


The town which has afforded us the most surprising specimens of 
this work is Basle. We have heard that a number of French iron- 
smiths took refuge there after the re- 
vocation of the edict of Nantes, and 
established works, where they turned 
out profusely every description of iron 
‘ornamentation ; and, indeed, the speci- 
mens that are left savour of the artist's 
hand, subtle in creating difficulties and 
overcoming them; the branches are 
twisted and intertwined like the twigs 
ii || of a vine, separating, and again join- 
| ing, to support baskets filled with fruit 
(NTI and flowers, the whole accomplished 
j| with an intricacy which puzzles one, 
but which is evidently the revelling of 
a mastery of the art. 

At the beginning of that century the 
radical decline of the locksmith’s art 
set in. ‘The monumental and stately 
gate was succeeded by one of mono- 
S— tonous stiffness and regularity, whose 

i eee only ornament was spiked bars. “ Des 

(From the Chateau d’Anet.) lances, encore des lances, toujours des 

lances, rien que ‘des lances!” with 

only a bunch of spikes tied with ribbons by way of variety, or 

the lictor’s fasces. On entering a garden or a courtyard we are 

greeted by the symbol of a prison or barrack! An anecdote is told of 

a marshal of France, who, in reviewing a company of voltigewrs on 

the Place du Carrousel, exclaimed: “Shut the gates, lest these canary- 

birds should escape!” He was right, for these gates are more like 
the bars of a cage than anything else. 

As an industrial art the principles of the Restoration and those of 
the century which followed it were not calculated to raise this branch 
of industry; thus the evil continued to progress, so much so that a 
few years ago an architect who possesses one of the richest collections 
of ornamental designs, M.’H. Destailleurs, was able to pronounce 
with truth the following severe judgment: “In general the head of a 


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IRON GATES OF THE NEW PARC MONCEAUX. 
_ (Made by Mons. Ducros from Mons. Daviaud’s design.) 


Page 289. 


BRONZE AND IRON, 289 


large locksmith’s establishment overlooks the works of his factory, 
anxious chiefly to obtain large orders, that he may keep up the 
number of his hands, without, however, entering personally into the 
minuter details of the work. If he undertakes some more delicate bit 
of work, for which the design of an artist has been found necessary, a 
sculptor is called in. Unfortunately, this joint production does not 
always answer, and for a very simple reason. The artist who is not 
familiar with the handling of iron often sends in an impracticable 
design or model, which, after great difficulties have been surmounted, 
is far from coming up to the effect that was expected of it. On the 
other hand, through ignorance and want of educated taste, the work- 
men often spoil the effect of details they do not understand, and so 
altogether slur over or dispense with them.” 

But now-a-days, on the contrary, young architects, who, although 
they may refuse to admit the fact, are allied closely or distantly to 
the profoundly national school of the Lassus and the Viollet-le-Duc, 
have formed heads of large factories, and have trained workmen for 
themselves. The first thing to be done was to dispense with cast- 
iron, which in some circumstances, and in its proper place, looks so 
well, but is so inadequate if required to yield softness and grace of 
detail; which was stuck about the frontage of houses in a thousand 
shapes—now a head of Mephistopheles, now that of a cherubim, the 
figure of a troubadour, or that of his lady-love—all more preposterous 
and out of date even than those on the zinc pendulums of third-rate 
French clocks. This end was soon accomplished. The gates of the 
Pare Monceaux form one of the finest examples of our contemporaneous 
Renaissance. 

We regret, however, that the magistracy should have been checked 
by economical views in a matter where municipal sumptuosity ought 
to have been allowed full swing. Superadded ornaments, such as 
flowers, arms, laurel-leaves, wheat-ears, and such like, were formerly 
cut out and separately shaped by a stamping process; they were not 
only separate themselves, but the material of which they were made 
was separately prepared, and often underwent a different process ; 
sometimes they were of sheet-iron, sometimes of cast-iron, the wrought- 
iron still taking the precedence. But they were always soldered on, 
that is to say, applied together when in such a state of incandescence 
as will enable the molecules of iron perfectly to mix and adhere 

U 


290 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


together. For this long and costly process another has been sub- 
stituted, which consists in fixing the leaves and ornaments in their 
places by means of rivets or small screws; but solidity is sacrificed 
both now and for the future, as may be conceived. 

Good work then is, and must always remain, a question of price. 
We know of a small house near the Champs Hlysées, in which the 
balustrade of the staircase from the ground to the first floor has cost 
the modest sum of 12,000 francs. It is of polished iron, shining with 
the brilliancy peculiar to steel. It is so harmonious and elegant in its 
interlacing, and at the same time so light and supple, that one might 
think, if one liked, it would be easy for some handsome giantess to 
pluck it from the marble steps, coil it round her arm, and thus possess 
herself of a magnificent bracelet. 

And this is not a solitary example of modern interior luxury 
carried out, as in past ages, to its highest perfection of detail. At the — 
last exhibition of the Union Centrale—which we here mention with 
satisfaction, insomuch as it demonstrated within the limited strength 
of a private association, and in a country where everything is ordered 
by the State, what advances had been made in Industrial Art—a young 
locksmith, M. Huby, jun., by name, received a first-class medal for — 
keys of marvellous workmanship exhibited by him. Would it not be 
a charming and gracious sort of luxury for a rich man to have all the 
keys of each piece of furniture in his study marked with his crest or 
with his family motto ? 

At that exhibition, too, it was easy to follow the vast modifications 
which modern discoveries have effected, and placed within the reach of 
arts as applied to industry. 

Ancient metals—brass, for instance—with its more vivid lustre than 
gold itself, and sober greenish reflections, will no longer form the sole 
material for monumental inkstands, washing-basins, and ewers in the 
Flemish style; but the manufacturer will seek to introduce the new 
ereyish-tinted metal, light as glass, known as aluminium, and pay 
its possible adaptation to modern furniture. 

Zinc, again—a metal relatively quite modern—has not only intro- 
duced itself, but also forced its way among us. Itis said that it promised 
more than it has performed. But still, on the lead ridge of country 
mansions it displays a certain kind of rustic elegance. I would even 
admit it for large figures in common or religious decoration ; for in- 


BRONZE AND IRON. 291 


stance, for the angels which support the pillars of small towers in 
religious edifices, or for figures standing over the door of a greenhouse 
or a stable, although I am told that when hard winter frosts or heavy 
rains arrive, the lions are apt to lose one or more of their paws, or the 
saints their arms, and even their prayer-books! But this is the manu- 
facturer’s concern. I personally only detest zinc in the form of statuettes 


SOTAIN. SG, 


KEYS OF WROUGHT-IRON, OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 
(By M. Huby, jun.) 


or cups when it pretends to be bronze. It is a piece of unpardonable 
presumption, and I would pursue those impostors with a horsewhip 
who present themselves to us in the attire of their masters, “ but 
without his soul.” 

One of the most original and surprising inventions of our day is that 
of Electro-plating. It is to Charles Christofle that is due the honour, if 


not of the discovery of electro-plate, at least that of its most important 
u 2 


292 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


industrial applications, especially in the artistic world. Its results have 
been great. Electro-metallurgy has enabled us to ornament the chief 
places of some of our humblest towns with monuments in metal. I admit 
that in most instances they are in detestable taste; but the fact still 
remains, and some day, when that eternal search after cheapness, which 
causes so many and such great errors of taste to be committed, can be 
laid aside, good taste will take a firmer root ; a preference will spring 
up for better-conceived and better-executed models—better suited, 
moreover, to the end for which they are intended—namely, ornamenta- 
tion and decoration. On the whole, the effect produced by these pieces — 
of galvano-plastic is generally better than that of cast-iron, although, 
latterly, we know more what might reasonably be required of cast-iron, 
and what obtained. 

Electro-plate has vulgarized dinner-table services by offering all the 
advantages of silver without imposing the cost. ‘To electrotype we 
owe the power of multiplying ad infinitum the types for printing, _ 
thus lowering the expense of the most recherché and exquisite en- 
gravings ; such, for instance, as the highly-wrought initial letters, which 
in former days were very costly ; it also furnishes us with the negative 
and plates of famous engravings. 

One of its most curious applications has been the engraving of 
prints. We know that, in the first instance, prints are cut either on 
steel or on copper. In passing under the roller which impresses the 
design on white paper, the plate naturally undergoes a considerable 
degree of pressure, and after much using it finishes by losing, to some 
extent at least, the distinctness of the type. Thus it is that first im- 
pressions are always most highly esteemed, which gives amateurs their 
passion for “states” (“états”). Hach successive phase through which 
a plate must pass under the engraver’s pencil, or the influence of 
aquafortis, and in the merchant’s hands, is called a “state.” The first 
“ state,” for instance, previous to the letter ; the second with the letter, 
which is already less valuable, since it argues an edition more or less 
numerous; the third, with the additional touches necessary to supply — 
the deficiencies of the plate, and so on. Now-a-days nothing of the 
sort occurs. Electricity leaves on the copper-plate an imponderable 
veil, which steels and hardens it, thus certifying a tenfold number of 
good proofs. » re 

When it is found that the steel surface is beginning to yield, it is 


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CANDELABRA OF CAST-IRON. 


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(Made in England from a model by Mons. Carrier-Belleuse.) 
Page 292. 


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BRONZE AND IRON. 293 


subjected to the process again, and re-steeled over. ‘This is, therefore, 
the multiplying in countless numbers of good and excellent impressions ; 
and it is a result in which art is very deeply interested, for it is next ~ 
to impossible to give a fair judgment of a master if one has not a 
perfect proof with soft shadows and delicate lights. A good proof of 
the Hundred-florin Piece, by Rembrandt—itself a miracle of colour and 
effect, to say nothing of the prodigious power and delicate sentiment of 
the conception—if it be in its first ‘state,’ or even in its second, may 
fetch the sum of five or six thousand francs, while a grey and worn 
impression from the same plate would cost only five or six francs.* If 
the process of electrotype had been known to Rembrandt, all his work 
would have been like those pink blackbirds which large collectors hunt 
with handfuls of gold. 

Galvano-plastic is the application on a large scale of this process. 
The description of it should be purely scientific ; we shall, therefore, 
not attempt to give it. Of course, chance—but one of which intel- 
ligent men only knew how to take advantage—had a share in the dis- 
covery. Ata meeting held this winter on the subject, after calling 
attention to the efforts of Volta, of Nicholson, and of Carlisle in 
1800, of M. Ruhmkorff in 1864, M. Henri Bouilhet mentioned the 
simultaneous experiments of Jacobi and of Spencer in 1838 and 1839. 
He then went on to relate the two following anecdotes :— 

Professor of the observatory of Vilna, the illustrious chemist was 
engaged in making researches concerning the voltaic pile of Daniell ; 
he had ordered the workman whom he employed for making the 
copper cylinders which were necessary to his apparatus, to be careful 
to use none but stout, perfectly malleable brass. When the experi- 
ments were made, M. Jacobi’s assistant came to him to acquaint him 
with the unwelcome fact that his workman had deceived him, the 
brass he had furnished being brittle and only of third-rate quality. 
M. Jacobi went to his laboratory to verify the fact, and on his way to 
it he encountered the supposed delinquent, who protested to him that 
the material used was good. M. Jacobi had no reason to mistrust the 
man, so he resolved to investigate the fact more closely. With the fine 


* The celebrated etching of Christ healing the Sick, by Rembrandt, which, from its 
scarcity, was called par excellence. “The Hundred Guilder” print is of greater or 
less value according to the different states of the plate. The finest specimen known 
was purchased a few years since by Mr. Palmer for the enormous sum of 1180 guineas, 
and within the last year was re-sold by auction for £1100, and is now on the conti- 
nent.—Ep. 


294 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


point of an instrument he raised the layer of metal which clings to the 
negative pole of Daniell’s pile, and was greatly surprised to find that 
it faithfully reproduced every scratch, line, and blow on the copper 
cylinder. His attention once aroused, he thought he would try it 
again; and again it was repeated in various forms, so that shortly 
afterwards he was able to announce to the Academy of St. Petersburg 
that he could produce copper-plates which bore in raised ey! all 
the hollow marks and lines engraved on the original. 

Mr. Spencer arrived at a similar result by another observation. A 
small drop of wax had accidentally fallen on the copper-plate which 
formed the negative pole of a pile of sulphate of copper; in adhering 
to it the metal stopped round the edge of the drop of wax. “I at 
once perceived,” says Mr. Spencer, “ that it was in my power to guide 
the deposit of copper as I chose, and to run it into lines scooped out 
with a point on a plain copper-plate.” This was Spencers first experi- 
ment, and such its result, upon which he instantly conceived the scheme 
of using the galvanic deposit to produce typographical characters. 

Modern woodcuts are, almost without any exception, printed by 
means of galvanic clichés; besides the incontestable advantage of 
shielding the first type from all chance of accident, these clichés 
afford the means of obtaining as many as eighty thousand proofs, while 
the primitive wood would hardly have yielded ten thousand unim- 
paired ; and this advantage is incalculable, when we consider the neces- 
sity of taking proofs on different presses at the same time. . 

“ The process for obtaining these metallic clichés or stereotypes, which 
offer all the advantages of the original wooden plate, is as follows: The 
wooden plate being engraved and ready, it is rubbed with blacklead, and 
then an impression is taken in gutta-percha by means of the pressing 
apparatus ; then the mould is dipped for the space of twenty-four hours, ~ 
which is the time necessary for it to be covered with a slight coating 
of copper; when this is done the reverse of the mould is covered with 
metal rendered fusible at a very low temperature, then the compound 
material of which the type is made, and the surface is placed on a 
stand that holds it upright and is destined to regulate its thickness in 
so doing. 

“Thus the cliché soon attains a greater thickness, that is to say, 
that of two or three millimetres, Ae thickness required to resist the 
mechanical pressure it has to undergo. To obtain this effect at once, 


BRONZE AND IRON. 295 


it had been necessary to dip it for three weeks. It is next nailed to 
wooden plates, the size of the original, to be printed, and, forty-eight 
hours after, a perfect proof is obtained of a wood engraving which 
probably cost the author two or three months’ hard work.” 

Another very important galvano-plastic application is that of sub- 
stituting the electric current for the engraver himself; so that, after 
handing a traced design—a mere drawing—on any given surface to a 
chemist, he will produce an engraving of the same, either hollow or in 
relief. Messrs. Dulos, Comte, Gillot, Coblence, not to mention others, 
have attained, more or less closely, to perfection. Thus, the frontis- 
pieces for the various chapters of this work, which M. Edmond Morin 
has been good enough to design, are engraved by a “ process,” and are 
not woodcuts, as are our other illustrations. 

It is evident that these “ processes ” are as nearly perfect as possible, 
although they have not as yet the neatness of outline, or the depth of 
colour, of a good wood engraving. They offer, however, the immense 
advantage of being able to suppress an intermediate agent, or engraver ; 
which engraver is tempted, the more and greater talent he possesses, 
to substitute his own work for that of the designer, thus proving him- 
self a clever impostor. ‘These remarks, however, would be more 
suitably placed in a chapter on typography. If we have been tempted 
to digress, it was to explain to our readers how it is that they see such 
numerous illustrated papers daily appear, and how it happens that these 
papers produce designs only issued from the artist’s hands the previous 
day. 

The electro dsposit of copper has also met with a large sphere 
of usefulness in the decoration of modern Paris; the fountains which 
adorn our public places, such as that of the Place Louis XV., 
the lamps and gas-pillars which light our boulevards and streets, are 
covered over with copper by means of a special process which we owe 
to the ingenuity of M. Oudry, and which preserves them from rust 
and oxidation. 

But our reader asks, where are the masterpieces? These are only 
the ingenious applications of Science ; what has Art to do with them ? 
Art is deeply interested in them; but it is a new kind of art, and one 
to which a future time must learn to adapt itself; an art whose object 
is no longer to gratify the isolated taste of amateurs, but to meet the 
complex exigencies of the public; an art which gives an equal portion 


296 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


to the artist and to the patron, and which, without trespassing on the 
rights of imagination, allows of a hundred thousand proofs being 
drawn of a masterpiece which was formerly unique, for the benefit of a 
vast community; an art which, in short, is everybody's, which only 
waits for more tranquil days that it may flourish and disseminate 
instruction equally to all. 

‘Electro-plating has already done much in sauilticlyinig the master- 
pieces of past ages. At M. Barbedienne’s our readers may have seen a 
faithful repetition of the doors of the Baptistery of Florence, by 
Lorenzo Ghiberti. In the windows of all the bronze shops are 
exhibited copies of cups attributed to Cellini, antique statuettes, medals 
of the Renaissance, &c. &c. The result is excellent, and yet we can 
scarcely bring ourselves to rejoice in it. We should leave its dis- 
tinctive feature to the past untouched. If an artist has conceived a 
bust in light-coloured bronze, let it not be reproduced in dark; if he 
has produced the living and attractive outlines of the cre perdue, it. 
should not be reproduced by means of a deposit of copper, the mole- 
cules of which can never come out perfectly adherent and compact. It 
is not well either to increase or to diminish what has been created in a 
given proportion. The Venus of Milo reduced to the dimensions of a 
statuette is scarcely distinguishable from a statuette by Pradier; and 
we feel that it would be almost impious to surround aa office inkstand 
with the figures of those Greek horsemen which gambol in the friezes 
of the Parthenon. ‘To each one his suitable ail his blood, and 
his soul. 

The thing to do is to seek new applications of a new method. The 
electro process admits of multiplying a work at little cost ; let this 
be taken advantage of to order works of cottbenpoem aie artists 
which will be a sincere expression of their day. you can place no 
confidence in the scrupulous honesty of the artists of genius who will be 
encouraged to enter the field, if they are not already born, or if we 
have not sufficient clearness of vision to discern bea then put up 
models for competition. | 

But on one ground the electro process is certain to triumph 
over the ancient process of casting. The days\of the Colossus of 
Rhodes are passed, between whose legs vessels plied, fully rigged and — 
all sails set. The day of those mighty statues, suca as those of which — 
remains have been discovered near Lyons, and whose hands are more 


BRONZE AND TRON. 297 


than half a yard long, is over. Even equestrian statues are seldom 
attempted now, but columns never. ‘The electro process is here, 
which enables a hollow bas-relief, by means of a coating of metal 
more or less thick, to present the appearance of a solid mass. We can 
already instance some of these triumphs of industrial art: the covering 
or outer coating of the Pope's waggon in 1859, under M. Trélat’s 
directions ; the locksmith’s work for the Empress’s apartments at the 
Tuileries; and the doors of the Church of St. Augustine, commenced 
at the same time as we write these lines, from the drawings of 
M. Victor Baltard. These, in themselves, are sufficient to bid the 
critic pause, and to furnish him with subjects for work and thought. 
Who knows whether we may not shortly have to cite, among the 
masterpieces of decorative art, the capitals of the columns of the new 
Opera House, which M. Garnier is claiming at the hands of that able 
and mysterious workman called by science the galvanic current, and 
which is perhaps none other than a subtle portion of the soul of the 
Cyclops and the smiths of bygone ages passing through a state of 
being unknown to us, on its road to supreme perfection ? 


a 


+e © 


Simultaneous invention of the working of gold and the wearing of jewellery—The gold 
of the antique world—The travels of Chardin in Persia—The itinerant jewellers 
of India—The gilders of heifers’ horns in the “‘ Odyssey °—Egyptian mummies— 
Earrings and pendants of the eighth century before Christ—M. A. Castellani’s 
attempts to find the secrets of the Etruscan and Roman jewellers—The funereal 
trinkets of the Campana collection. 

Byzantine jewels; reliquaries—The Middle Ages—The Lorraine gold-workers of the 
Suger Chapel—The French thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—The Italian 
fifteenth century—The chief ornament of a table at the beginning of the six- 
teenth century. 

The “ Memoirs” of Benvenuto Cellini—His birth, his education, his first duel, his first 
works, and his peregrinations in Italy—The siege of Rome, and the tiaras of the 
papal treasures—New journeys, works, and adventures—His medals and coins — 
His first journey to France —His return to Italy, and his subsequent and romantic 
imprisonment at Rome—He is promoted, and devotes himself to the service of the 
Cardinal of Ferrara—Description of the salt-cellar of the museum at Vienna, the 
Karth and the Ocean—Second journey to France; his reception by Francis I. ; 
the favours and orders for work he received—The Nymph of Fontainebleau and 
the gems of the Louvre—His misfortunes through having incurred the displeasure 
of Mdme. d’Ktampes; his shrewd trickeries — He escapes to Florence —- He 
occupies himself with the Perseus—The dramatic history of the casting of that 
statue—The death of Benvenuto Cellini. 

The art of working gold in France from the middle of the sixteenth century—A 
German drinking-mug—The studio of Etienne Delaulne—The jewels of Gilles 
Légaré—Claude Ballin, goldsmith to Louis XIV.—The miseries of the Great 
Reign—A royal Nef, and a lamp under Louis XV.—Marie Antoinette’s chimney- 
clock—A. few works and a few names of well-known goldsmiths and jewellers 
under the Empire, the Restoration, and the late reign — A beer-pot by Messrs. 
Fanniere Brothers—Conclusion. 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 


We have not in this work separated the goldsmith’s craft from that 
of the jeweller, for they both melt, emboss, and chase the same metals, 
namely, gold, silver, steel, and copper; they mount the same kind of 
precious stones, the diamond or the pearl, handling the same tools, 
the hammer and the chisel. The goldsmith is the jeweller of the 
dressoir ; and the jeweller is the goldsmith of the jewel-case. 

Their history commences at the same moment. In the days when 
man, as yet hardly human, found a -vague pleasure in drawing 
the outline of a stag’s head on the flint of his hatchet, or an un- 
dulating line round the earthen pot he modelled with his hand, the 
woman found equal pleasure in collecting stones of various colours, 
rounded and made smooth by the flux and reflux of the tide, in 
piercing them through, and making them into necklaces and pendants 
for the ears. 

As we have already stated, we think that gold must have been the 
produce first collected by the inhabitants of India on the sloping 
sides of the Himalayas, or in the beds of the torrents flowing from 
them. ‘They must have gathered it in vast quantities: the amount 
of it scattered abroad in all parts of the earth is incalculable, and we 
know by the quantity which at the Renaissance was imported from 
Peru and Mexico, as well as that which in our days is brought over 
from California, what it must originally have been. It is not unlikely 
that at some period or other there existed at Rome and in the Lower 
Empire statues which were made of massive gold. The famous 


302 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Golden Calf of the Hebrews was but a vulgar bauble when compared 
with the splendour of Solomon’s Temple. 

Where, then, are these mines which yielded so prodigiously ? 
Everywhere. It would seem as if the solidified rays of the dazzling 
light of the first of days were surrounded and encased in a network of 
gold. Gaul certainly possessed some. Our ancestors wore huge 
necklaces and bracelets of gold. A few morths back two bracelets of 
solid gold, formerly belonging to Gaulish chiefs, strongly made and 
roughly ornamented, were added to the Museum of the Hotel Cluny ; 
one of them weighs more than four thousand franes. Gold was the 
ideal of riches in the antique world; and it will be long before the 
modern form of change—that is, paper—triumphs over its brilliant 
and incorruptible ancestor, at least in the popular mind. 

In the journey which Chardin made through Persia, towards the 
end of the seventeenth century, he testified to the existence of 
accumulated fortunes and riches which pass all belief. We hardly 
know which to choose from the numerous quotations we might make to 
that effect. The following are two, chosen haphazard, and which are 
amongst the more modest among them. Chardin describes a tent 
which was called the “House of Gold.” ‘Two hundred and thirty 
camels were necessary to transport it from one place to another. 
Further on he speaks of the tombs of the two last kings of Persia, 
which are in chapels at Com: “The tomb of Sefy has, like that of 
Abas, a pall of that rich brocade of Persia which is the costliest made 
in any country in the world, and another over it of fine scarlet 
surrounded with a fringe of gold. This second covering is attached 
to the carpet on the ground by a braid, which is passed through a 
number of rings of gold, as at the tomb of Abas. Close by, in two 
niches, are a quantity of books of the law contained in bags of gold 
brocade. It is impossible to see anything more beautiful or more 
magnificent. All the utensils belonging to these chapels are of gold 
or of silver. They consist of large candlesticks of fifty or sixty marks * 
a piece, of basins, dishes in which food is given to the poor, of hot 
plates, of shovels, of perfume-burners, and perfume-boxes.” 

In Persia, with that fine and singular race in which imagination and 
mysticism so greatly predominate, the workmen who handle gold are 
subject to singular responsibilities. The ring which surrounds the seal 


* Mark, eight ounces. 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 303 


or talisman is only half detached from the talisman itself; and as that 
seal is the visible mark of earthly power, so the engraver and jeweller 
are responsible to the government for the bad use to which it may be put. 

The goldsmith’s art is still, now-a-days, practised in the English 
possessions by the humblest hands. We have seen on the neck and 
arms of a young girl who had been educated in India, necklaces and 
bracelets of a degree of thinness and suppleness which defied all 
comparison with our European workmanship. They were actually as 
fine and as supple as a thread of silk; and yet not a single one of these 
threads, in themselves so fine as hardly to be discernible with the 
naked eye, had given way in the twenty years that she had had them 
in her possession. She told us how that, every year at a certain 
season, four poor itinerant goldsmiths came and established themselves 
in a little tent by the roadside opposite her father’s house ; they came 
in, and a few ounces of gold were measured out and handed to them ; 
then they fixed a small anvil into the ground, squatted on their 
carpets, and from morning till night they would hammer, chisel, and 
beat with a surprising degree of patience, ability, and taste. A 
handful or two of rice was given them every morning, and about a 
fortnight afterwards they came and returned the equivalent amount of 
gold to that which had been lent them, transformed into trinkets and 
chains so light that Queen Mab might have selected them to harness 
her butterflies to her chariot. After which, with stoical indifference, 
they would fold up their tent, remove a few leagues off, and establish 
themselves at the door of some other nabob. 

Might one not imagine such to have been the gilders of heifers’ 
horns of which the “ Odyssey ” speaks ? When Telemachus reaches Pylas, 
Nestor is desirous of making a sacrifice to Minerva; he commands 
one of his children to go and fetch him a heifer out of the fields; 
another he orders to go and tell the gilder Laerceus to come and gild 
the horns of the heifer. “The workman came, holding his brass 
instruments in his hand, together with his anvil, his hammer, and the 
carefully-made tweezers with which he wrought gold.” The aged 
Nestor hands the gold to the workman, and he fashions it and applies 
it to the heifer’s horns, in order that the goddess might take pleasure 
in the offering. 

The Egyptians whom we meet with in Europe at the beginning of 
our Indo-European civilizations, seem to have carried the art of work- 


304 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


ing gold and jewellery to the highest degree of perfection. The sacred 
scarabseus, or beetle, emblem of the eternal regeneration of universal 
strength, is often met with in gold, and if those of stone or earth are 
more numerous in our day, it is because they were held in contempt by 
the Arabs, who pillaged the tombs before we did. Each of our readers 
has doubtless seen those mummies with a leaf of beaten. gold applied 
over their faces, or on the outer coating of their winding sheets. 
These reveal the existence of consummate art. When carefully looked 
at, and compared with each other, it is easy to distinguish portraits 
which must have been true likenesses. Although they all have the 
typical almond-shaped eyes, high cheek-bones, and thick lips, these are 
not alike in all the mummies of queens or of priestesses, of Pharaohs 
or of centurions and chiefs; these thin gold masks, on the contrary, 
transcribe very different physiognomies, the difficulty being all the 
greater, because the faces must seem to sleep in peace and happy rest, 
as if they had left even the recollection of the — they had 
passed on the threshold of the tomb. 

We would refer our readers to page 222 of this work, in order to 
examine the beautiful Egyptian bracelet which is decorated either 
with cloisonné enamels or with coloured pastes. Is not that fioure 
impressive, which stands erect, outstretching its four wings, as it were 
a holy bird or insect? Hgyptian jewels are not very rare; their 
vast necropolis has furnished us with many. 

But here are curiosities of quite as charming a taste. They are 
Pheenician earrings, which the Louvre acquired through M. Salzmann, 
who himself discovered them in the ruins of Camyrus, on the island of 
Rhodes. They came from the oldest portion of the necropolis, in the 
nearest zone of the hill on which the town is situated. Other articles 
were also collected from the same sepulchral chamber, but they had been 
much injured by the falling in of the roof. “TI believe I am correct, 
and that I may still consider myself to be within the limits of proba- 
bility,” writes M. Salzmann, to the “ Revue Archéologique,” “when I 
attribute to the eighth century before Christ the divers articles which 
were dug out of that particular part of the necropolis.” : 

These ear-pendants are not funereal jewels, like those in the (ite 
pana collection, which are mafle of extremely thin gold. They were 
worn fastened to the garments by a hook, which is visible on the 
upper part. They are of fine gold; the flat surfaces are composed of 


JHWELLERY AND PLATE. 305 


two beaten plates, fixed together by means of solder round the edges ; 
some of the ornaments on the upper plate are formed out of it, and are, 
worked with embossed work; others are applied and soldered on 
after being made separately ; moroever, the surfaces are covered with 
filigree ornaments. All the soldering is done with fine gold. In 
order to consolidate the whole, they have soldered, behind the lower 
plates, fragments of gold sufficiently strong to prevent their bending. 


EARRINGS FOUND IN THE ISLAND OF RHODES. 


(Louvre Museum.) 


The lion couchant in the centre of one of these plates is in the 
Assyrian style; his mane is quaintly composed of a collection of 
minute round balls, while similar granulated lines designate his mouth, 
his ears, and his breast. In front of this lion, and almost between his 
paws, is a swallow, while each of the inferior angles is composed of an 
eagle’s head. At the base are three rings, to each of which a pome- 
granate flower is attached by means of a little chain as fine as the 
x 


306 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Indian chains we have just been examining. These chains are 
subdivided into three quivering and slender pomegranate branches, 
after passing through a head in the Egyptian style. In the other 
earring, of which the excellent woodeut here reproduced for us 
renders 1 unnecessary to speak, we discern the face of a woman—an 
Ethiopian, according to M. Salzmann. 

The process by which the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Ghee and 
Romans accomplished this granulated kind of ornamentation is but 
little known; we only know how much it was employed on their 
jewels; nor have we any idea how they were soldered on. M. A. Cas- 
tellani, the son of a Roman jeweller, who, in 1814, had already made 
some experiments, resolved to solve this question. A pamphlet 
he addressed a few years ago to the Members of the Academy of 
Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, contains the most precise and practical 
documents which have yet been published on this subject. 

Besides being one of the ablest goldsmiths and jewellers that Rome 
possesses, M. A. Castellani is an antiquary who has, at a great expense, 
made several collections, which he has scattered among the principal 
museums of Europe. It is evident, then, that his judgment 1s based 
on positive observation ; and we should therefore credit him when he 
affirms that, even in the most brilliant days of imperial Rome, the 
art of Greek and [truscan jewellery was steadily declinmg. After 
the fall of Rome there was, with regard to art, a long night of utter 
darkness; the early Christian jewels are often semi-barbarous—for a 
degenerate senility produces always inferior articles to the simple and 
artless sketches of childhood. Are not the Byzantine ear-pendants— 
which will be found on a succeeding page—a pale reproduction, 
a soulless and faithless imitation, of those of the Campana collection ? 
The celebrated crowns of the Guarrazar treasure, which were in all 
probability presented by Gothic kings—three of the most ancient his- 
torical curiosities possessed by the Museum of Cluny—seem to us, from 
an artisan’s point of view, and making all allowance for the striking 
and highly-coloured look of them in the lump, with. their leaf gold 
rudely hammered, and their rough ornamental to be the work 
of a mere tinman. 

The Renaissance itself either did not know, or did not care for, 
ancient jewellery. It is now among the investigations of Kertsch, of 
Vulci, Cervetri, Chiusi, and 'Toscanella, that this jewellery of the ancients 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 307 


shows itself radiant and worthy to be ranked with the statuary and 
Ceramic art of flourishing ages. The searches in the necropolis of 
Etruria towards the year 1827 brought real treasures to light. The 
violation of the tomb at Cervetri, which was said to be Regulini 
Talassi’s, placed in the hands of M. Castellani and his father articles 
of gold which they were able to study at leisure before surrendering 
them to the Pontifical government. 

The finer pieces in the collection of the Marquis of Campana, and 
those which he collected at Ccere, are now at the Louvre. But we 
must not omit to remark that they are funereal jewels, that is to say, 
lockets, sheaths, plates, and crowns made to ornament—economically, 
however—the ears, the shoulders, breast, and forehead of the dear 
departed ones. France already possessed some sets of very curious 
antique jewellery, more especially the contents of a Roman lady’s jewel- 
case, which were found at Lyons, built up im an old wall, and which 
therefore partly belong to the museum of that town. There, unfor- 
tunately, as is the case with almost all our national collections, no 
historical or descriptive catalogue of those articles exists, so that we 
can only here recommend them to the discerning curiosity of any of 
our readers who may chance to pass through that ancient capital of 
what was once one of the largest and wealthiest regions of Gaul. 

To the jewels of the Campana collection here reproduced should 
be added the lockets, representing a swan and a cock, of which we 
have already given an illustration in our chapter on Enamels, for a 
demonstration of the ability with which the Htruscans made use of 
painters’ enamel. 

The “ Cabinet des Antiques et Medailles” is also very rich in speci- 
mens of this kind. Besides various pieces of Roman goldsmith’s work 
in massive gold, worked and beaten, and containing a whole series of 
medals, such as the “paten of Rennes,’ or, again, the chalice of 
St. Remi, it contains also the Sassanide monument, called the cup 
of Chosroés I. 

Antique jewellery—which has, of late years, been very cleverly 
imitated, and which our fair Parisiennes took into favour for the space, 
at least, of a whole winter—are faithful and fragile testimonies of 
feminine luxury, never much varying in any age. There are neck- 
laces, consisting of a chain, suspending cameos; rings, lions’ heads, 
and asphodel buds; a figure of Victory, with outstretched wings and 

pp 


308 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


a wreath in hand; or a Venus sitting on a panther, while her celestial 
son, seated behind her, is playing on the crotals ; or pieces of money, 
similar to the coins which the Wallachian ladies still hang drooping 
from their hair; also earrings, brooches, pins, rings, and tiaras com- 
posed of a thousand little enamelled flowers. Nothing is so pathetic 
and breathes more of life than an antique jewel. ‘he skilful, cherished. 
labour of some unknown artist, its small dimensions, speak to us of — 
an entire portion of the arts of a particular epoch. It has probably 
been the delight of some woman or child, and has grown cold on 
the chest of one who has been resting in the bosom of the earth for ~ 
two thousand years. It is as a familiar genius or household god 
that new deities have not been able to exorcise; and here we see 
it, fresh and smiling, telling us of the immortal youth and beauty 
of art. | | 

The most singular, and perhaps the richest of all discoveries, was 
that of Koul-Oba, in the Crimea, in 1831. In all probability it was 
the tomb of a king and a queen. What Paris possesses of it—only 
nine plates—as also what is contained at the Museum of St. Peters- 
burgh, seems to have ornamented some regal garments. But nearly 
all was meanly stolen, dispersed, and melted. 

Most of the sepulchral chambers in the burial-grounds of the 
Campagna necropolis were pillaged in the time of the Romans, just 
as the Egyptian tombs were searched and robbed by the first Christians 
and the Arabs. ‘The numerous earthquakes which broke the vases and 
urns, and filled them with earth, so as to crack them and nearly destroy 
them, were powerless to destroy the gold in those places which chanced 
to have escaped the pickaxe of the thief. Since then, however, the 
investigating traveller and the antiquary have completed what re- 
mained to be done. 

It were well if all those who profaned those tombs had drawn such 
practical lessons and conclusions from them as M. A. Castellani has 
done. He says: “To ascertain the processes and methods of work 
used by the ancients was the chief aim of our efforts. We found that 
all the antique trinkets, with the exception of those which were destined 
for funeral ceremonies, were made by the anplication of one piece to 
another, or of one or more pieces over another, instead of owing their 
ornamentation to the use of the chisel or the embossing-iron. Here lies 
the secret of the fact that ancient jewellery has a character quite peculiar 


Eze “ 
SS 
a Se 


ZZ 


, 
Ss 


SS 


ZZ 


a 
SS 


SS 


NG 


Sethe 


SS 


EE 
aioe 


LY 


< 


VY 


wD 


SS 


DD 


SS 


NN 


ed ee 
ST OOS 


GREEK GULD CIRCULAR FIBULA. 


(Campana Collection, Louvre.) 


Page 308. 


re] . + : ae 


JHWELLERY AND PLATE. 309 


to itself, which borrows its stamp much rather from the spontaneous 
idea and the inspiration of the artist, than from the cold and disinte- 
rested work of the goldsmith’s artisan. Even its imperfections and 
voluntary irregularities give to antique jewellery that artistic aspect so 
vainly sought for in the greater portion of modern works; these, 
reproduced with a tiring uniformity, by means of the chiselling and 
moulding process, acquire an aspect of sameness which deprives our art 
of that quaint simplicity of which the charm in antique jewellery is 
so great. 

“The first thing to be done, then, was to discover a means of sol- 
dering neatly and firmly together a given number of pieces of different 
sizes. The granulated ornamentation—those little, tiny, almost in- 
visible beads which form so important a part of antique jewels—this 
presented an almost insurmountable difficulty. We made innumerable 
attempts, using all the agents possible, and the most powerful process 
of melting, to make a species of solder suitable for such work. We 
consulted the writings of Pliny, of the monk Theophilus, and of 
Benvenuto Cellini. We studied the work of the Indian jewellers, of 
the Genoese and Maltese; but it was only in a retired corner of the 
Marches, at St. Angelo, in Vado—a little place hidden in the depths 
of the Apennines, far from every centre of modern civilization —that 
we were able to find some traées, in the shape of processes still in use, 
which must have been the same as those employed by the Etruscans. 

“In this region of Italy a special school of traditional jewellery is 
carried on, resembling sufficiently the ancient art im its actual work- 
manship, though without the taste or elegance of the designs. The 
peasant women of these parts wear necklaces and long earrings, 
called ‘ Navicelli, at marriage festivals, not unlike specimens of antique 
~ jewellery.” 

M. A. Castellani ordered over from St. Angelo, in Vado, to Rome, 
a few workmen, to whom he handed Etruscan jewels as patterns. 
Heirs themselves of the patient modesty of their fathers, and in no 
way anxious about mechanical means adopted to secure a geometrically 
accurate result, they gave to their labours the kind of characteristic 
ease of style which stamps and identifies the original handiwork. 
Arseniates were substituted for borax as melting agents, and ordinary 
solder was reduced to a kind of impalpable file-dust. The use of the 
punch and the process of casting were entirely laid aside. Judging 


310 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


from the extreme delicacy of certain portions, it was supposed that 
they must have been the work of women’s hands; so M. Castellani 
educated and instructed certain workwomen—the while greatly congra- 
tulating himself for having conceived the idea, especially with regard 
to the placing and soldering of that fine granulated ornament which 
runs in minute cords on the surface-profile of the jewels. “ But, 
however,” he adds, as a conclusion—and, we repeat it, this conclusion 
is that of an artist, of a practical workman, and of an antiquary— 
“we are nevertheless convinced that the ancients must haye had 
some chemical process by which to fix these intertwistings which is 
unknown to us, and without which, notwithstanding all our efforts, we 
have not been able to arrive at the reproduction of certain articles of 
exquisite minuteness, and which we despair of ever imitating, unless 
through the agency of some new scientific discovery or other.” 

In passing from Rome to Byzantium, the centre of the Roman 
Empire made itself semi-Asiatic. The Oriental influence, therefore, 
makes itself plainly felt in Byzantine art, and we need no further 
testimony to that fact than the existence of the accompanying reli- 
quary cross, of copper gilt, with double branches, besprinkled with 
uncut precious stones. This substitution of gilt copper for gold leaf 
is already, as it were, the dawn of the economy of a new world. But 
a still more singular symptom is the introduction of cheap imitations 
of what we either do not know, or do not care to make. Thus, — 
for instance, laying aside all question of outline or of detail, it is 
certain that in an antique trinket the tracings of the framework 
surrounding the stones would have been of granulated ornamentation ; 
now they are merely copper threads or wire hollowed from behind 
with a punch. | 

These ear-pendants, which are nile of Byzantine work, indicate the 
prevalency of the Christian religion among the higher classes. For 
it is not in troubled times that a woman would have dared to wear, 
ostensibly at least, a jewel marked with a cross. By that time, it is 
true, the ancient world had fallen. 

We read in Constantine Porphyrogenitus the description of the heaps 
of marvellous jewels in the Church of St. Sophia, and in the palace 
of which it formed only a dependent part, accumulated by Justinian 
and his successors. Other manners, other customs, garments, and orna- 
ments, succeeded them. Literature and the arts both sank into utter 


i 


4 $- ul (hy / 
Tan Als got 


RELIQUARY CROSS OF GILT COPPER. 


(Specimen of Byzantine work. In the Musée des Thermes et de I'Hdtel de Cluny.) 


Page 310, 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 311 


darkness for a time, and Europe soon after could no longer read or 
write. The luxury of the Emperors of the East assume a barbaric 
splendour. Their thrones are guarded by automaton animals of gold 
shining with enamels and precious stones, who mew and howl with 
quaint contortions. A school of rhetoric, treating speech as an empty 
pastime, succeeded to that noble harmony of the Greeks which was 
made up of symbols and abstractions. What is left us of that period 
is barbarous and rigid; the Emperors seated on their thrones resemble 
mummies that have come to life again, with eyes as keen and sharp-as 
those of a falcon. ‘The diptychs, gospel books, shrines, clasps, hinges, 
crosiers, medals, and ivories of that day have a rude, unpolished cha- 
racter. Hxcept in the scarce instances when the flame of Greek art 


EAR-PENDANTS OF GOLD. BYZANTINE WORK. 


(In M. Charvet’s collection.) 


still shed some hallowing rays over it, all that period of the Lower 
Empire brings to mind Mexican art with its monstrously bizarre gods 
and deities. 

Then came the year one thousand—a fatal year to Christianity and 
human society. It was only in the middle of the eleventh century 
that art began to put forth shoots and-buds. Germany, that Rhenish 
school to which, as we have already stated in our chapter on 
Enamels, is attributable the first symptoms of the awakening, shows 
that it had accepted the Byzantine tradition ; nevertheless, the 
Rhenish school had modified it a little. Thus, in adapting monu- 
mental forms to the proportions of household furniture—an altar- 
shrine, for instance, made in imitation of a church or chapel—it did 
not shrink from breaking the severity of the lines with here and there 


312 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


a leaf ornamentation, or substituting for the solemn, powerful effect of 
a full arch a trilobed arcade, in the form of a trefoil. The character 
of the Byzantine altar-shrines reminds one of a coffin or cenotaph. 

The imitation in metal of stone constructions, mean though it was 
under the Renaissance, burst forth in the Middle Ages in charming 
specimens, such, for instance, as the reliquary of the treasures of Basle, 
now in the collection of Count Basilewski—our reader will meet with 
a representation in our pages. The inspiration is exquisite ; the body 
of the shrine, destined to receive the wood of the Holy Cross, or the 
bones of martyrs, is like the vault, or at least the chancel; it starts 
from the ground ; the two saints, which have for a pedestal what might 
be compared to aisles or chapels, rest upon the arms of two angels, half- 
enveloped in cloud. But, as M. A. Darcel has observed, in his clever 
work on the Renaissance chalices of the “ Hglise Saint-Jean-du- 
Doigt,” the articles we owe to the Middle Ages are always, or might 
be, put to a practical use. 

Let us interrogate France as to what she could do at that time. 
Jewellers from Lorraine were, under the eye and supervision of the 
Abbé Suger, making marvellous things, which, benefiting by its long 
dynastic past, France still possesses in a 
perfect state of ‘preservation in the collec- 
tion of the gems and jewels of the Crown.* 

The accompanying earring, whose 
Frankish and Merovingian origin is un- 
doubted—-would it not seem to have been 
| unhooked from the ear of one of our 
|} peasant women from the Isle of France 

| or from Picardy? Unfortunately, now 
that the enormous productions of the 
central Paris have the preference, both 
in cheapness and attractive novelty, the 
little provincial jewellers have given up 


MEROVINGIAN EARRING. 


(In M, de Charvet’s collection.) working at all, so that, a few years hence, 

all originality of conception or design will 

have totally disappeared. The variations of fashion have never been 

more sudden or more abrupt than they are now. Jewels, like female 
dresses, will shortly endure no longer than the flowers of a season. 


* Gemmes et Joyaux de la Couronne. 


K GEL ATHOE one 


LAY 
Si 


RELIQUARY OF THE ANCIENT TREASURES OF BASLE. 


(Thirteenth Century. Collecticn of Count Basilewski.) 
Page 312 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 413 


Without intending it, we more and more tend towards the imitation 
of the people of the African coast, who are the terror of merchant cap- 
tains. We start with a cargo of well-assorted bits of glass and pebbles. 
We land on the coast of a small kingdom, where negroes are bred in- 
stead of oxen for the sovereign. Some morning the negress who leads 
the fashion among them takes it into her head that scarlet as a colour 
is ugly, and that blue is more becoming to her style of beauty. No 
sooner is this conclusion arrived at than the community hurries to the 
waterside, roots up, breaks, tears, and throws into the water all that 
does not chance to be blue; and if the next unhappy vessel touching 
at that shore does not happen to have blue material on board, the 
captain of it may rest assured that neither gold-dust nor elephants’ 
teeth will be bestowed on him! 

But, apart from the tyranny of fashion, of which, like ourselves and 
the negroes we have just mentioned, our ancestors were the victims, 
they have graver excuses on their side, such as the rough tempests 
they had to encounter, civil wars, English occupation, religious wars, 
political revolutions, and famines. 

We must not lose sight of this fact—and we will return to it later 
in strengthening our view with a quotation we have borrowed from 
M. Léon de Laborde—that the art of increasing the value of money 
by means of fictitious interest was as yet only just thought of, or, at 
least, that property had then to be represented, not by paper, but by 
landed estates or metals; and thus it is still, in one sense, for a 
fraction of the capital of the Bank of France is kept in its vaults 
encased ina metallic coating. Precious stones, gold, and other jewellery 
then constituted the entire fortune of kings, lords, and gentry. But 
the twelfth century, the period when Suger made the masterpieces of 
art of which we are about to speak, was dominated by the religious 
spirit ; there was the almost inconceivable wealth of the Church. 

Suger, born of humble parents, became in 1123 the head of the 
convent of St. Denis. It had harboured and lodged him when a 
child and unprotected. Minister and counsellor to the Kings Louis 
VI. and Louis VII., he was invested with the regency of the kingdom 
during the second Crusade. In 1152 he died, bearing the touching 
appellation of “Father of his Country,’ which Louis VII. had be- 
stowed on him, notwithstanding his having been, what kings seldom 
forgive, a firm and independent counsellor. He had strengthenel 


314 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


the regal power, externally by preaching and preparing a Crusade, of 
which his death hindered the departure, and internally by decreeing 
wise laws and practising an inflexible justice. He had especially pro- 
tected those of the rank whence he himself had sprung. He had 
managed the public finances successfully, by encouraging commerce, 
which renders them fruitful; and, lastly, he liked and appreciated the 
arts, having occupied himself in ornamenting and adorning the house 
of God with the help of those immense riches which his strict piety 
and economy left him at liberty to dispose of as he would. A man of 
sense, as well as of vast intelligence, he had understood the refining 
and emancipating influences circulated by the arts. When the austere 
St. Bernard was thundering out against the luxuries of the Church, 
Suger mildly replied in his “ Livre de son Administration :” “ Let 
each judge in this matter as seemeth him best. If, in the ancient 
law, the commandments of God and of the prophets ordained that 
vessels and cups of gold should be used for libations, and to receive 
the blood of the rams, heifers, and goats which were offered in sacri- 
fice, how much rather should we devote gold, precious stones, and the 
rarest of materials, to those vessels which are destined to contain the 
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ ?” 

His first care after having rebuilt the Church of St. Denis, was 
himself to order its furniture. Of this the Louvre possesses several 
valuable pieces. First there is a paten for a chalice, a sort of saucer 
of olive-green serpentine, encircled with a rim of gold, which is set 
with rough and uncut stones, and in which—no doubt the workman- 
ship is Persian—are engraved two rows of little golden-fish. Then 
comes a crystal vase, doubly precious on account of its being in all 
probability an antique, mounted in silver gilt; the filigree ornaments 
binding together the pearls and precious stones of the rim and feet 
are of the purest design; the body of the vase has been cracked, 
but its original shape is unimpaired. It was the gift of Queen 
Eleanor d’Aquitaine to her affianced husband, King Louis le Jeune. 
There is also an antique vase of sardonyx, in the form of a cruet. 
A fourth article is the vase of which we subjoin an engraving. It 
is an antique in red porphyry, which the treasurer of the convent 
kept in a case of its own. Whence did it originally come? From 
Rome perhaps; out of the’ treasures that the Emperors pillaged in 
their last invasions of the Barbarians. Charlemagne’s historian, 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 315 


Eginhard, remarks that, “the Franks justly deprived the Huns of 
that which the Huns had unjustly taken from other people.” This 
vase was in the shape of a straight urn; perhaps it had been 
shaped and polished by Egyptian stone-cutters. In order to trans- 
form it into a reliquary, Suger had it recast into the shape of an 
eagle. The head is admirably noble and energetic, the wings, form- 
ing the handles, are exquisite in finish, the claws are true to Nature, 


ANTIQUE VASE IN THE TREASI'RY OF THE ABBEY OF ST. DENIS. 
(Mounted anew by Suzer’s goldsmiths. Now in the collection de Gemmes et Joyaux de la Couronne 
at the Louvre.) 


and the tail, on which it rests, outstretched and touching the ground, 
forms its base. Around the neck, and fixed to the top of the wings, 
is a scroll bearing the dedicatory inscription in Latin. I do not think 
that any school of jewellery can ever have modified an article of stiff 
rigidity to serve other purposes better than was here done. 

It is in these interpretations, as audacious as they are intelligent, 


316 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


that French genius chiefly shows itself, for the goldsmiths who worked 
under Suger’s orders were from Lorraine. 

We have mentioned all that is left of the articles made by command — 
of Suger, and of which he has kindly left us a list and description ; but 
how many of them must have been destroyed! At the end of the 
choir of this church he had erected after 1144 a tomb destined to 
receive the ashes of St. Denis and of his two companions, which were 
lying in silver coffers ever since the time of Dagobert. Kings, bishops, 
princes, and civilians, all were anxious to contribute to the embellish- 
ment of that tomb; the altar-piece alone, studded with numberless 
stones of great price, had cost forty-two marks in gold, while the 
description of the shrine, which contained the three sarcophagi, occu- 
pies twelve folios in the catalogue of the treasures of St. Denis. 

Two convents, that of Citeaux and that of Fontevrault, sponta- 
neously proposed to hand over to Suger, for a sum considerably below 
their real value, a large collection of sapphires, hyacinths, rubies, 
emeralds, and topazes, which they had obtained from the munificence 
of Count Thibaud, nephew to the King of England. Suger looked 
upon this disinterestedness in the light of a real miracle. 

He seems to be thanking God for it in the kneeling figure of him- 
self which he had made in high-relief, and placed at the foot of a 
crucifix resting on a column of gold. That crucifix and that column, 
the magnificent beauty of which dazzles the eyes of the reader's 
imagination when he reads the description of them in the book, were 
consecrated at the Easter festivals by Pope Eugéne III. The sen- 
tence of anathema against those who would lay a sacrilegious hand 
upon it saved it for the first time when Philip of Valois, exhausted 
by the war with the English, asked for the golden crucifix, whose 
intrinsic value must have been enormous. Chance was its next pro- 
tector, when the Huguenots pillaged the convent. But the heads of 
the League in 1590, that is to say, the Pope's legate, the Duke of 
Nemours, and the Provost of the Merchants of Paris, believed them- 
selves specially privileged to take possession of it, and transform it 
into golden ingots. And yet the sentence of anathema was not with- 
drawn. “And it is to be observed,” writes Jacques Doublet in his 
“Histoire de l’Abbaye de St. Denis,” “that he who ordered the 
crucifix should be taken, however great he might be, before the year 
was out felt the effect of this anathema and censure fulminated, and 


af eee aL =i 
5 : 


MON FALANW 
RELIQUARY OF COPPEK GILT. 


(German work of the Twelfth Century. In Mons. Basilewski’s Collection.) 
Page 316. 


JEWHLLERY AND PLATE. 317 


not in vain, by the vicar on earth of Jesus Christ, inasmuch as he 
died a violent death, full of rage and fury, in the ripe flower of his 
age, and in the midst of his schemes and enterprises, without mention- ‘ 
ing the other afflictions with which it pleased God to visit him.” 

The influence of the Abbé Suger on decorative arts was decisive 
and beneficial. His is one of the calmest faces that the first emerging 
from the obscure periods of the early Middle Ages has revealed to us. 
We are inspired with none but profound respect for this priest, who 
upholds the cause of the ideal even under the storm of St. Bernard’s 
elo uence ; this broad-minded administrator, a genius essentially 
national, who might have summoned artists and workmen from 
Byzantium to work gold for him, but who preferred to encourage 
the growth of purely French art. It is under the name of a great 
politician and an able disposer of national finances that he is generally 
mentioned ; but when our academies, instead of useless and wearisome 
dealings with foreign esthetics, conscientiously investigate the history 
of the glories of France, Suger, far more justly than many another, 
will deserve the title of restorer of the fine arts in France. 

His example was all-powerful; not only the bishops, who were his 
contemporaries or his successors, imitated him in proportion to their 
riches ; nor did they disdain to follow the example which had already 
been set them by St. Eloi.* Towards the latter end of the twelfth 
century, an abbot of the monastery of Audernés, in the diocese of 
Boulogne, Guillaume by name, is mentioned as successfully exercising 
the goldsmith’s art. England took a great part in this movement. The 
South Kensington Museum has possessed itself of a curious candlestick 
in bronze, cast by the cire perdue process already described, which came 
from Gloucester Abbey ;f in the ornamentation of the stem and nozzle 
is an intertwining of monsters and human figures, which symbolize 
the promiscuousness of vice by acts, the evidence of which is repulsive. 

In the French thirteenth century, religion still reigned victorious. 
Shrines and reliquaries ceased to be made in the shape of oblong 
coffins, but became miniature copies of churches, in gold or silver. 
Bas-reliefs and figures increased in number. ‘This was the climax 
of religious goldsmith’s work, and even our modern goldsmiths have 
not surpassed those of that century. 


* St. Eloi was the patron saint of the goldsmith’s craft. 
+ It was purchased at Prince Soltikoff’s sale in Paris. 


318 


MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


Then the luxury of table-plate and ornaments began to make itself 
felt. The button on the cover of a drinking-cup which belonged to 
the Duke of Anjou consisted of a low fortified tower, on which a man, 


GOLD RING. 


Jewellery of the thir- 
teenth century. 


like an impostor who has taken possession of a pul- 
pt, stands playing on a flute. M. Jules Labarte, 
whose labours on this period of our industrial 
fine arts are conclusive, reminds us that Rubruquis, 
despatched by St. Louis to the Khan of Tartary, 
met with a Parisian goldsmith of the name of 
Guillaume Boucher; he had established himself 
in the service of that prince, and had made him a 
fountain after the French fashion, which weighed 
three thousand silver marks ; it represented a large 
tree, around which four lions were vomiting liquors ; 
an angel stood on the summit of the tree bearing a 
trumpet, which, when a particular spring was touched, 
he raised to his lips. The sultans and pachas of 
modern days still seem to inherit from the Khan 


(Basilewski collection.) that childish passion for automatons. When Abd-ul- 


Medjid died at Constantinople, all the furniture 


of every room in all the palaces of the seraglio were invaded with 
picture-clocks, where you see a ship struggling against waves made 
of thin muslin, with shrubs, on which are placed singing humming- 


JEWISH RING, 


Jewellery of the 
fourteenth century, 


birds, and with figures of magicians, who perform 
their wondrous feats at stated times. 

The fourteenth century it was which first saw the 
advent, in the construction of royal or princely palaces, 
of the “jewel-rooms” (‘‘chambre des joyaux”). That 
of Charles V., whose treasure after his death was esti- 
mated at nineteen millions, was at the Louvre, and 
measured nine fathoms in length and four and a half 
in breadth. We have been shown at Bourges, in the 
house of Jacques Coeur, the treasure-room of the cele- 
brated and too-unfortunate silversmith of the most un- 
erateful of kings. 


The accessions of new monarchs were made the opportunity for an 
incredible display of luxury. We read in Froissart the description 
of the festivities held in Paris on the occasion of the accession and 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 319 


coronation of the Queen Isabeau de Baviere in 1389. At the second ~ 
“Porte St. Denis” (which is now no longer in existence) “are two 
angels, bearing in their hands a very rich crown of gold, studded with 
precious stones, and this they gently deposited (moult dowcement) on 
the head of the Queen.” Then, “on the Tuesday, as the clock struck 
twelve .... on a litter borne by two strong men, very suitably 
dressed as savages, there were four pots of gold, four gold ladles, 
and six gold dishes,” which the gentry of Paris presented to the 
King at his Hotel St. Paul. The presents to the Queen, the Nef 
scent-bottles, bonbon-boxes, salt-cellars, pots, gold basins, lamps, 
silver dishes, and trays, &c. &., were carried, also on a litter, by 
“two men, who were dressed one in the similitude of a bear, and the 
other in that of an unicorn.” The third present, made to the Duchess 
of Touraine, Valentine de Milan, when she had just married the 
King’s brother, Louis d’Orléans, “ was brought in like manner into the 
Princess's chamber by two men dressed as Moors, with faces painted 
black.” ‘These presents cost the Parisians upwards of 60,000 crowns 
in gold; but France has always been ready to pay for her whims. 
“The goldsmith’s art,” writes M. Léon de Laborde, in the preface 
of his “Notice des Emaux du Louvre” (which lent the tone to all 
modern catalogues), “in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries played a 
larger part than one can well imagine in the reading of historians ; 
the study of the statutes of the trade and the series of ordinances 
regulating its fabrication, strike one with astonishment when studied 
in relation to the accounts of the Kings of France, and the Princes 
of the blood, in their inventories, and in those of the churches, in 
marriage-settlements, and in testamentary documents. We learn by 
these documents the prominent place occupied by goldsmith’s work in 
manners, customs, pursuits, tastes, applied as it then was to dress,,. 
furniture, and armour, and, in short, to the embellishment of life 
generally. ‘The enormous sums it represented made the luxury of 
prosperous times; in them, too, lay the resources in times of war and 
trouble. In short, it formed the entire possessions of kings, princes, 
and lords... . When troubled times of crisis came, when a war had 
to be sustained, or a ransom to be paid, a money-changer was sum- 
moned, large chaldrons of gold or silver were melted down, and money 
was borrowed on private jewels and trinkets. If children had to be 
settled in life and a dowry given them, it was the ‘ jewel-room’ which 


320 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


- furnished the required sum. And more: in every-day life, scarcely a 
day passed without a dive being made into one’s treasure to make a 
present of jewellery, a golden drinking-cup, or a simple gilt dish, to 
some favourite or relation, a foreign ambassador, a messenger bearing 
the tidings of some victory or defeat, or to the modest outrider, who 
“came as fast as his horse would carry him to announce the birth of a 
son or a nephew.” ‘This picture is all the more to be trusted that 
M. Léon de Laborde has drawn his information from the researches 
priceless to the history of our arts, published by him, concerning the 
“Lists of Accounts of the Courts of the Dukes of Burgundy and of 
the Valois.” 

This excessive splendour and these magnificent ere sank with the 
supremely feudal period. Louis XI. especially made large loans to the 
saints when in precarious circumstances. He lent heavy sums to 
Heaven, at a high rate of interest, claiming for a dividend indulgence — 
for himself and confusion to his enemies. “St. Martin de Tours” was 
the one of Heaven’s bankers in whom he reposed most confidence ; he 
caused a silver railing, of enormous value, to be placed on his tomb. 

The pillage in May and June, 1562, by the Huguenots—who in all 
likelihood were not alone engaged in that expedition—of the reliques 
and treasures of the metropolitan church of the Gauls, that of St. 
Martin de Tours, produced about 5,000,000 of our money.* But 
even this is only the estimation of the intrinsic value of the gold, the 
silver, and perhaps of the precious stones. The artistic value and the 
costly workmanship do not figure in it. 

Before we pass’ through the sixteenth century with Benvenuto, 
who hammered old iron at the corners of the streets, journeying 
from town to town, we will devote a few lines to the denomination 
of the various and sumptuous articles which decorated the dressoirs 
of that period. We shall be assisted by the lucid notes of 
M. Henri Barbet de Jouy, in his valuable publication, the “Gemmes 
et Joyaux de la Couronne,” which is a sort of album illustrated 
from the cabinets of the “ Galerie d’Apollon” at the Louvre. 
“Le Drageoir” was the bowl or basin in which preserved fruits, 
either dried or in syrup, sweetmeats, and preserves generally were 
served. It was placed on the sideboard or dressoir, handed round at 
table, and often furnished with a certain number of spoons. Some of 


* Frances. 


JHWEHELLERY AND PLATE, 321 


these “ Drageoirs” are extant, made of Oriental jasper, rock-crystal, 
gold, silver, enamel, &e. The “ Aiguiére,” or ewer, a vase intended 
to hold the water before it was poured into the tumbler or drinking- 
cup, was often made in the quaintest possible shapes, such as a man 
seated on a winged serpent, a cock, a lion, a siren, or a bird; the 
Duke of Anjou had one thus fashioned: “The tail of a griffin was 
twisted back between his ears; at the end of the tail there grew a sort 


Si 


EWER OF PEWTER, THE WORK OF FRANGOIS BROT. 
(in M. Dutuit’s collection.) 


of rose; in the middle of the rose was an opening by which to intro- 
duce the water; the mouth of the griffin formed the spout.” Some 
of them too were made of pewter; but as it is not our intention here 
to touch on the subject of pewter, however interesting the sub- 
ject may be to many, we will give a place to the solid and 
massive tankard by Francois Briot, who worked under Henry II. 
The “Hanap” was the drinking-cup. M. Jules Jacquemart en- 
¥ 


322 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


graved one which is now in the possession of the Louvre; it is of 
rock-crystal, and represents a large fish, a carp, supported by a 
stand placed under its belly. The “ Bottle,” in the form of a decanter, 
was an innovation of the sixteenth century. The “Nef,” also called 
“Cadenas,” because it generally locked with a key, was primarily 
made in the shape of a ship. It was placed on the table opposite 
the king or lord, and, through the fear of poison, which then ~ 
played so active a part, it was destined to contain spices, drinking- 
cups, spoons—in fact, all the articles for daily use—in short, a sort of 
portable cupboard; when made very small it was called “ Navette.” 
It continued in use, subject to infinite varieties of shape and size, 
until the end of the monarchy; and we find it again on the’ table of 
Louis XV. at the conclusion of this chapter. The “ Fountains,” 
which contained several sorts of wine and liquor, were, as we have seen 
in reference to the Khan of Tartary, articles of considerable dimensions. ~ 
The “Saliéres,” or salt-cellars, also affected all kinds of shapes. We 
have mentioned some in Oiron ware in our chapter on Ceramic Art. 
Benvenuto has afforded us the opportunity of engraving one, that we 
reproduce a few pages farther, in our mention of him. Salt in these 
days suggested particular misgivings as a vehicle for poison; and as 
the tongues of snakes enjoyed the reputation of giving warning of the 
presence of poison, some of these were represented suspended to the 
branches of a tree, sniffing at the salt. 

The Italian Renaissance was like the blooming of a spring flower, 
with its conquering grace, brightness, and perfume. France was, as it 
were, intoxicated with it. 

‘he sixteenth century closed with Nicolas and John of Pisa, who 
finally broke with Byzantine tradition. Two schools, one at Sienna 
and one at Florence, monopolize Italy between them. The goldsmith’s 
art blends itself with that of the sculptor ; and this it is which lends to — 
the first fine statues of the fourteenth century their look of finish and 
superb refinement. Cione, the father of the famous painter, sculptor, 
and architect, Orcagna, worked at Florence for the baptistery of St. 
John, on which so many other illustrious masters also bestowed 
their touches. ‘The list of his pupils and successors winds up oD the 
name of Philip Brunelleschi. 

In the fifteenth century it was Lorenzo , Ghiberti, who, at the age 
of little more than nineteen, came out first at a competition set on ae 


~ 


wade We 
oY ra | 
a] N 


Y | ae wn 
ae 


LLL: 
2 


WW y Yor 


——~=-= 5) 1}({f 


———— Zia 


VIRGIN AND CHILD. 
(Reduced copy in bronze of a marble by Michael Angelo. In Mons. A. Thiers’ Collection.) 
Page 323. 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 323 


by the corporation of the Merchants of Florence, for the execution of 
the two great doors of the baptistery, and yet Brunelleschi, Donatello, 
and Jacopo della Quercia were his competitors! Andrea del Verrochio, 
who died in 1488, did not abstain, even while casting his admirable 
statues of David and of Colleone, from occasionally using the gold- 
smith’s hand-vice; and in his studio and workshop was formed the 
mind of Leonardo da Vinci, himself perhaps the finest, but certainly 
the most universal of the geniuses of art. 

Antonio del Pollajuolo was a goldsmith, painter, sculptor, and 
engraver. He was emulated by his contemporary, Maso Finiguerra, 
whose niellos serve as a starting-point to iconographers in their 
primary sketches for engraving on metal. 

It was in the days of Cosmo de’ Medici that a goldsmith of Florence, 
named Thomaso Bigordi, accepted as his definitive title the nickname 
of Ghirlandajo, “maker of garlands,” to which he owed his subsequent 
ability and success. 

He made for those slender Florentine damsels, whom his illustrious 
son, Domenico Ghirlandajo, transformed into saints and celestial 
messengers, the light jewels of gold or silver, whereof a circle sustained 
the hair, and formed a delicate knot on the forehead. Michael Angelo, 
who was the pupil of Domenico Ghirlandajo, was careful not to despise 
this slight chaste crown, which on fair women seemed to lose itself 
amidst the luxurious tresses, asserting itself only by the shadow it 
cast. We still find traces of it on the brow of the Virgins stooping 
over their Divine Son, and holding him to their breast with an ab- 
stracted air. 

Francesco Raibolini, surnamed La Francia, was also a goldsmith— 
at the same time a painter of the first order, if it be indeed he who 
painted that chef-d’ceuvre of the “salon carré” at the Louvre, showing 
a young man dressed in black, leaning over a balustrade in profound 
meditation. The Academy of Fine Arts at Bologna has preserved 
two niello paxes, on which, at the place to be saluted by the faithful, 
Francesco has represented the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. He 
was Governor of the Mint in his native town. 

About this time the activity and enthusiasm of the Italian mind, 
especially in the north, was at its highest. And what an ardent flame 
it was that deyoured these powerful artists! No rest, and yet no 
fatigue! But what an erudite public they had, consisting chiefly of 

YX 2 


324 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


scientific men, poets, popes, princes, courtiers, men of refined tastes, 
and captivating cultivated women. We shall find in the “ Memoirs” of 
Benvenuto Cellini, whose work as a goldsmith opens the sixteenth 
century, and fills it with interest, the names of the master jewellers 
(a list of them would here be out of place), his predecessors, his 
masters, his rivals, and his pupils. 

These “ Memoirs” form a romance full of incident and srhtisenionib 
they present a life-like picture of Italian manners and customs at the 
time when the higher sentiment in art was on the decrease. Benve- 
nuto Cellini wrote them when in retirement, and on the verge of old 
age. It is at the age of fifty-eight that, when tired of using, or 
rather abusing, the hammer and the chisel, weary too of holding the 
sword and the dagger, his fevered hand took up the pen to review his 
past life with a verve of boastfulness and cynicism that it would be 
— unjust now to judge with the cold and placid eye of modern days. We 
certainly cannot sympathise with the writer of these pages. His 
writing is alternately violent, ecstatic, and bitter ; nor do we anywhere 
find a triumphant masterpiece in any of the ae which have survived 
him; but we must make allowance for certain inherent defects in the 
Italian race, and not separate the man from the corrupting atmosphere 
he lived in. We are bound to remember that the signal for poison- 
ings and murders of all descriptions came from those who occupied the 
highest seats in society ; perjury and violence were then met with in 
holy habitations. Cellini felt that he might commit flagrant crimes 
with impunity. The man therefore arrests our attention spaces as 
much as the artist. 

Benvenuto Cellini was born at Florence in the year 1500, in the 
night which followed All Saints’ Day (that is, November Ist). His 
mother’s name was Elisabetta Granacci, and his father’s Giovanni — 
Cellini. His ancestors were among the gentry of the Val d Ambre, 
and followed the military career; his grandfather, however, was an 
architect. His father studied drawing, and the science of engineering ; 
he appears to have been an excellent performer on the flute, and was 
for a short time flautist to Lorenzo de Medici; he made some ad- 
mirable wooden organs, and the finest and best spinets ever seen, 
violins, too, and lutes and harps of a rare beauty and perfection. 
According to his son, he was the first Italian who worked ivory well. 
“He made,” says Benvenuto, “a mirror in bone and ivory about a cubit 


. JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 325 


(18 inches) in diameter, ornamented with leaves and flowers, whose 
design and degree of finish were admirable. This mirror represented a 
wheel ; in the middle was the glass, and round it seven circular frames 
containing the seven Cardinal Virtues, carved 
in ivory and in bone dyed black. The mirror 
was so placed relatively to the figures that 
when the wheel was turned round the Virtues 
were always brought straight out, thanks to 
a counterpoise under their feet.” 

Among the earliest recollections of our hero 
-—who was christened Benvenuto, Welcome, 
because his birth was so anxiously awaited by 
his parents—is a reminiscence of his father |... ses ov tum oxuum 
administering to him a severe box on the ears, FAMILY. 
in order to impress on his mind the singular 
spectacle of a salamander disporting itself in the midst of a fire, and 
of his trying to make a musician of him. 

Nevertheless, when still young, and moved by earnest supplications, 
he went as an assistant in the workshop of the father of Bandinelli, the 
sculptor, whose name was Michael Angelo, the first Florentine gold- 
smith of his day.. He stayed there but a short time, and to his great 
sorrow and regret he recommenced playing the flute. 

“At the age of fifteen,” he says, “contrary to my father’s wishes, 
I entered into apprenticeship with a goldsmith called Antonio di 
Sandro, and surnamed Marcone. He was an excellent workman. 
My father refused his consent to his giving me a salary, as he did to 
his other apprentices, because he said I was only learning the art for 
my own pleasure, and he wished me only to draw and work at what 
happened to please me. This I did very willingly, and my worthy 
master was delighted with my productions. He had a natural and 
only son, whom he not unfrequently ordered to assist me. Thanks to 
my desire to excel and to my good disposition, I contrived, in a few 
months, to rival good, nay, the best goldsmiths’ work, and very soon 
I began to reap the fruit of my work. I did not omit, however, to 
play on the flute and horn occasionally, to please my father, who never 
heard me without shedding tears and sighing profoundly. Many a 
time, in order to make him happy, I went as far as to try and 
persuade him that the study of music was a great pleasure to me.” 


326 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL. ART, 


But soon his blood began to heat itself. Benvenuto, at sixteen, 
seeing hig brother fight a duel, rushes up, sword in hand, rescues him, 
and is exiled to ten miles from the town for the space of six months, 
He starts with that same brother, taking for his sole possession and 
baggage the blessing of old Giovanni, his father; at Sienna a worthy 
goldsmith of the name of Francesco Castoro receives them. He next 
goes to Bologna, and enters the shop of Maestro Ercole del Piffero, and — 
thence to the house of a miniature painter, named Scipio Cayaletti. 
There he draws designs; and, cultivated by a Jew, he begins to make 
a little money. | 

He then returns to Florence, and starts. again for Pisa, for his 
veins seem full of quicksilver. He works at the house of a goldsmith 
named Ulivieri della Chiostra. ‘‘ During the year that I spent at 
Pisa,” he writes, “I greatly improved in my work, and I turned out a 
few fine pieces of goldsmith’s work that did but inspire me with the 
desire to persevere and do more.” He naturally visited the Campo Santo. 
“There,” he says, “I found a mass of antiques of rare beauty, such 
as marble sarcophagi; also in many other parts of the same town I 
met with numbers of ancient ornaments, and devoted all the time I 
could spare from my work at the shop to examine them.” Here was 
a noble field for study! It is to such hasty sketches from the frag- 
ments of these chefs-d’ ceuvre which had served for rough stone supports 
for the scaffolding of houses, or had once been milestones and land- 
marks, like the Pasquino at Rome, that the Renaissance owed its 
originality, suppleness, and strength. Later on pupils emulated their 
masters, and the school flourished vigorously. 

After a violent illness, of which he was cured through playing 
a beautiful air on the flute, Benyentsa, re-enters the shop of his old 
master, Marcone. 

At this period (1518) there lived at Florence a sculptor named Pietro 
Torregiano ; the same who inflicted that blow with his fist which was 
violent enough to break the bridge of Michael Angelo’s nose, thereby 
giving his countenance the aspect of a lion’s face. He had lately 
come from England, “and was incessantly speaking of his valiant 
deeds when among those animals, the English.” Cellini, finding him 
more of a blusterer than himself, grew weary of him, and separated 
himself from a master whose reputation was already established, and 
who tried to patronise him. He became intimate, on the other hand, 


JHWHLLERY AND PLATE. aay 


with a fellow-workman of his, the grandson of the illustrious Fra 
Filippo, and the son of Filippino Lippi. Between these two so great | 
an affection sprang up that they parted neither by day nor at night. 
“His house,” writes Benvenuto, “ was full of books containing precious 
studies, which his worthy father had taken from Roman antiquities. 
I became a perfect enthusiast during the two years that I spent with 
Francesco.” 

At this period too it was that he executed, amid shouts of applause 
from his comrades, in the workshop of Francesco Salimbene, a silver 
bas-relief no larger than a child’s hand. It was then the fashion for 
men to wear clasps of these dimensions to their belts. Cellini had 
chiselled thereon antique leaves, intermixed with children and grotesque 
figures. ‘The belt itself, three inches in width, when ornamented with 
figures was called a chiavacore. 

But these precocious successes were insufficient to fix a vagrant and 
capricious nature such as his. One afternoon he meets with Augustin 
Tasso, himself a carver of wood, and, like Benvenuto, the possessor of 
few resources and but little experience, upon which they mutually 
defy one another to go to Rome. No sooner said than done. When 
there he places himself in the employment of Giovanni da Firenzuola, 
a goldsmith of Lombard origin, who chiefly excelled in working gold on 
a large scale. This man received him kindly, and instantly set him to 
work ona magnificent piece of silver plate destined to be the property 
of a cardinal. It was a small coffer, copied from the one in porphyry 
which stood before the door of the Rotunda. “I decorated and enriched 
it,” says Cellini, “ with such beautiful little masks and faces of my own 
invention, that my master went and showed it to all his colleagues, 
congratulating himself that so admirable a piece of work had come out 
of his shop.” 

In so doing Firenzuola acted imprudently. One fine day one of his 
colleagues, named Paolo Arsago, conceived the idea of enticing his 
brilhant pupil away from him ; and the wild ee ever fond of change, 
fell in with it readily. 

Two years afterwards we meet with him again, making large sums 
of money, with Francesco Salimbene. He is then thinking of setting 
up business for himself; and to this end he hires the half of Gian- 
Battista Sagliani’s shop. But his dagger will not rest in its sheath, 
and we see it thrust itself, as it were of its own accord, into the bosom 


328 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


of a young rival; so here is our matamore again forced to fly for 
safety. He starts for Rome, which had just received Clement VII. as 
Pope and as sovereign. There Lucagnolo da Jesi, a goldsmith of whom 
Benvenuto thinks highly, receives him into his workshop, where he 
also makes the acquaintance of one of Raphael’s pupils, Il Fattore. By 
the latter he is presented to the Bishop of Salamanca, a generous 
promoter and protector of the arts, but a Spaniard, passionate and 
hasty to the highest degree. This prelate gives him, as also to Luca 
Agnolo, an order for one of those large ewers which we imagine can 
only have been used to ornament the credence tables; it was to be 
made from the. drawings of Francesco Penni, Il Fattore. For this he 
is only paid through an audacious trick. 

He worked successively for the Cardinals Cibo, Cornaro, Ridolfi, and 
Salviati. For the Gonfalonier Gabrielo Ceserino he chiselled on one of 
those enseignes or gold medals which were then worn on the hat, the 
pagan fable of Leda and Jupiter. The Cabinet of Antiques at Vienna 
still believes itself to be the possessor of this trinket ; it is a medallion 
of gold, enamelled; the figures—including one of Love, who is standing 
smiling—are in high relief, coloured with enamel; they are so raised 
as to detach themselves almost entirely from the background. 

While at Rome he had profoundly studied the works of Raphael and 
Michael Angelo. His self-approbation had increased in consequence, 
but not this time without good reason. But it soon grew so pro- 
digiously as to exceed all bounds, and here seem to have commenced 
his attacks of the fever of vanity and conceit. He tries to vie with a 
celebrated goldsmith of Perugia, named Lautizio, and this is the reason 
why: “ Each cardinal at Rome has a seal, on which his coat of arms is 
engraved, together with numerous other figures; these seals are about 
the diameter of the hand of a child of twelve; when well done they 
brought a hundred francs or more.”  Lautizio excelled in making 
them, but he could do nothing else; Benvenuto tried to eclipse him, 
but he admits that he met with very great difficulties in studying this 
special branch of his art. Then he affects to work enamel as well as 
Amerigo of Florence ; and lastly he mentions a rival whose great merit 
he is obliged to allow (notwithstanding his reluctance to eulogise . 
others), a Milanese named Caradosso, whose “little chased medals and 
paxes in relievo, and whose crucifixes of the dimensions of a palm, in 
plates of very thin gold,” actually kept him awake meditating on them. 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 329 


But the plague burst out all over Italy and reached Rome. Orders 
were stopped, and Benvenuto, in order to kill time and amuse himself, | 
went out shooting pigeons in the country with a blunderbuss. His 
remarkable aim has only been equalled by a famous novel writer of our 
day, who bears more than one point of resemblance with our boastful 
hero. “It was in giving myself up to this agreeable pastime,” adds 
Cellini, “ that I scraped acquaintance with certain antiquaries and 
curiosity-seekers, who made it their business to watch for the Lombard 
peasants, who, at a certain time of the year, came to Rome to dress the 
vines. ‘These peasants, in digging the earth, were sure to meet with 
coins, agates, cameos, Wc. &c., which they sold at a very low price 
to my antiquarian friends, who would then sell them again to me for 
more pieces of gold than they had expended in pence. I then sold 
them again, and besides bringing me a benefit of at least a thousand 
per cent., they won for me the notice and friendship of all the cardinals 
in Rome.” Among other curiosities, Benvenuto thus picked up the 
head of a dolphin in emerald, the size of a bean; a topaz as large as 
an enormous hazel-nut, representing a head of Minerva; a cameo, of 
Hercules leading Cerberus in chains, “a specimen of such perfect 
workmanship that our divine Michael Angelo affirmed that he had 
never in his lite seen so great a marvel;” also a number of bronze 
coins—among others was a profile of Jupiter. 

“ About this time,” he says, “I chanced to become possessed of 
certain little Turkish daggers, the handles of which, together with the 
euard and the blade, were of steel, ornamented with beautiful Oriental 
leaves, engraved with a chisel, and inlaid with gold. This kind of 
work materially differed from any which I had as yet practised or 
attempted ; nevertheless, I was seized with a great desire to try my 
hand at it, and I succeeded so admirably that I produced articles 
infinitely finer and more solid than those of the Turks. ‘There were 
several reasons for this. One was that I cut my steel deeper, and 
another that the Turkish leaves consisted only of colocassia leaves, and 
of the flowers of the Corona solis, which, though not devoid of elegance, 
are not so gracious to the eye as ours. 

“In Italy we copy various kinds of leaves. The Lombards make 
beautiful wreaths composed of ivy leaves and briony, with their beautiful 
intertwinings. The Tuscans and Romans have had a still happier 
inspiration ; they reproduce the acanthus leaf and flower, ‘which they 


ee MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


twist and twine in a thousand graceful ways, intermixing birds and 
animals here and there among them. ‘These are the manifestations of 
a fine taste. They also make use of wild flowers, such as that which 
is called snapdragon. Famous artists among us intersperse these 
flowers with a number of quaint ornaments, termed by the ignorant 
“ orotesques.” Moderns have called them thus because it was at Rome 
that antiquarians first discovered models of decoration of this sort, in 
caverns which were formerly sitting-rooms, studios, bath-rooms, or 
apartments of that description, but which, through the rising of the 
soil, had become buried in the course of a long succession of years. As 
these subterranean structures are known at Rome by the name of 

‘grottos, so the ornaments contained in them got the name of 
‘ grotesques.’ ” | 

We have not an opportunity of showing the reader the works ae 
Cellini pretends ‘to have made so infinitely finer and more solid than 
those of Turks;” but herewith is a copy of a damascened box, orna- 
mented in the same way, made at Venice by workmen called ‘‘ azzi- 
ministi,” and which is quite exquisite. 

The siege of Rome by the Constable de Bourbon forms one of the 
more comico-dramatic episodes of the book. Cellini as an artillery- 
man is like the captain of a Spanish comedy. It is his arquebuse 
that kills the Constable, and his faleon-shot that wounds the Prince of 
Orange. Then the Pope absolves him “ for all the homicides he has 
committed, and intends to commit, in the service of the Holy Apostolic. 
Church.” But soon, alas! the same Pope, Clement, is in want of 
money, and the following is the lamentable scene that ensues: ‘* When 
we were all three locked up (in a small room in the castle of St. 
Angelo), his Holiness and his favourite, the Cavalierino, placed before 
me tiaras, and all the precious stones belonging to the Apostolic 
chamber, ‘The Pope commanded me to unmount them, which I did. 
I then wrapped each stone in a separate bit of paper, and then we 
sewed them into the lining of the Pope’s vestments and those of the 
Cavalierino. All the gold, fatout two hundred pounds in weight, was 
left to me, with orders to melt it down with as great secrecy as 
possible.” 

What marvels of workmanship and ornamentation was then thrown 
remorselessly into the melting-pot! ‘This thought, however, does not 
extract the slightest sigh from him, nor a word of respect for the 


ij 


HAT 


TT iia 


DAMASCENED CASKET, 


Page 330, 


(Sixteenth Century. Venetian work by the Azziministi.) 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE, 331 


genius of those who went before him. Cellini’s was an indomitable 
pride. But fate was destined to punish him for this sacrilege, of 
which he was, however, only the passive instrument ; either falsely, or 
with truth, he was accused of having robbed a large portion of the 
ingots of this treasure. He was quite a man to make an arrow out of 
every bit of wood, and turn his chances to account. He admits having 
washed the ashes, in which remained one pound and a half of gold, 
and kept it for his share in the transaction. 

But the siege comes to an end, and Benvenuto starts afresh for 
Florence. ‘I was alive,” he writes, ‘(a well-furnished purse was in 
my pocket, and I had a groom anda good horse.” And more; he 
was a captain, and received orders to raise a company; “ but,’ 
he adds, “I was always fond of seeing the world, and as yet I had 
never been to Mantua.” So he shortly finds himself in that town, 
seeking for work and finding some with one Maestro Niccolo of 
Milan, goldsmith to the Duke. He relied on the good offices of 
Giulio Romano, who introduced him to the Duke. He resided there 
four months, during which time he made the ducal seal, and also a 
reliquary for the Holy Blood brought by St. Longino. He made 
besides a little wax model representing Christ seated, holding His 
cross, on which He seems to be leaning, in His left hand, while He 
opens the wound in His side with His right. 

Again he returned to Florence; but he found his father had died 
of the plague. He established himself in the old market, and earned 
a little money by mounting trinkets and jewels. It is then that he 
made his famous gold medallion of Hercules tearing open the Lion’s 
Jaw, of which he gives a detailed description in his “Treatise on Gold- 
smith’s Work.” ‘These medallions or enseignes, as we have already 
stated, were worn on the hat. The one here mentioned obtained—says 
Cellini, and we think it not unlikely—great praise from Michael 
Angelo. There is a letter extant from Michael Angelo to Cellini, in 
which the great and austere genius seems almost to prostrate itself 
before the blustering and high-flown workman. But perhaps Michael 
Angelo was himself less strict and austere than Vasari has thought 
proper to represent him. His sonnets, to which he so constantly 
reverts, on the subject of thought battling with the ideal, betray a 
suffering as well as a softened heart. We see him represented. under 
a singularly dreamy and accessible aspect in the bust—modelled, no 


332 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


doubt, by some one of his pupils, which is now in the possession of 
M. Beurdeley. If the expression of the mouth has preserved a dash 
of bitterness, the look of the eye, at least, is gentle and kindly. 


QY 
Sy 
2 ‘yy 

® 

a | OOETZEL, 


BUST OF MICHAEL ANGELO. 
(A Florentine Bronze by an unknown sculptor. In M. Beurdeley’s possession.) 


Ped 


ee 
a, eS 
Sy 
—<_—— 


Benvenuto also made for Frederico Ginori the medallion of Atlas. 
“Tt was,” he says, “a figure chiselled in metal ; he bore the world on his 
back, in the shape of a ball of crystal, on which I had engraved the 
signs of the zodiac. It stood out on a background of Jlapis-lazuli.” 


JHWELLERY AND PLATH., 355 


Bartsch, a celebrated iconograph, has pointed out, in the collection of 
the Prince de Ligne, a drawing by Cellini, believed to have been a 
study of this very figure of Atlas. 

Suddenly, and when Clement VII. had first declared war with 
Florence, we see Cellini, like a bad citizen, leave his country and start 
for Rome. Was it in truth, as he states, to obey the pressing injunc- 
tions of the Pope? We must suppose that his conscience did not feel 
very clear; for the space of a fortnight he remained secluded, and, as 
it were, purposely hidden, in the house of an old goldsmith whose 
name was Raphael del Moro. <As yet, however, the Pope manifested no 
suspicion ; he received him courteously, and forgave him his avowed 
larceny with respect to the washing of the gold of the melted tiaras: 
in a second interview, impatient with Caradosso—who was a very slow 
worker—for being so dilatory in finishing a cope-button, he ordered of 
Cellini a second button, and showed him a number of precious stones. 
The following is Cellini’s description of the model of the said button, 
which won for him great praise: ‘Above the diamond, which I had 
placed exactly in the centre of my composition, was God the Father, 
seated in an easy attitude, so as to be in harmony with the rest of the 
piece, and not to crowd the diamond. With His right hand He was 
giving His blessing. The diamond was supported by the arms of three 
little angels ; the centre one was modelled in high relief, and the other 
two in semi-relief. Around them were playing a number of little children, 
interspersed with other stones. The Father was covered with a floating 
mantle, whence arose a multitude of winged angels and ornaments. 
The whole was in white wax, standing on a background of black stone.” 

But the Pontiff did not rest content with that. He proposed to 
Benvenuto, to whom it was a new branch of his art, that he should 
engrave his coins. He executed a gold doubloon, or double ducat, which 
bore on the obverse an “‘ Ecce Homo,” and on the reverse the head of 
Pope Clement VIT. Another coin, representing, on the obverse, the 
Pope and the Emperor supporting a cross, and on the reverse, St. Peter 
and St. Paul, is also Cellini’s work. These coins are most delicately 
engraved. : 

He also made for Clement VII. the design and model in wood 
and in wax of a monumental chalice; by way of a knob to the cover, 
he had put three statuettes in full relief, of Faith, Hope, and 
Charity, answering to three circular bas-reliefs on the foot of the 


334 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


chalice, which represented the Nativity and Resurrection of Christ, 
and the Crucifixion of St. Peter. This chalice, which he refused to 
give up save upon immediate payment, caused him many annoyances. 

We suppress in these “ Memoirs ” all that is too personal or too absurd ; 
such as the account of his duels, his brother's death, his journey to 


PAPAL COINS OF CLEMENT VII. AND OF PAUL Ul. 
(By Benvenuto Cellini.) 


‘Naples, his evoking the shadows in the Coliseum. One trait, how- 
ever, indicates how confused and heated was the brain of the man. 
He is requested to portray a figure of Peace on a gold coin; this he 
does by the figure of a young woman holding a lighted torch, with 
which she is setting fire to the doors of the Temple of War! an 

While Benvenuto was completing two medals, one with Moses on 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 335 


the reverse, the Pope died. Thus he was left exposed to the per- 
secution of his enemies; and the following will show that they had | 


° 


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MEDALS OF FRANCIS I, AND OF POPE CLEMENT VII. 
(By Benvenuto Cellini. In the Cabinet des Médailles et Antiques.) 


reasons for being inveterate :—‘t The arquebusier ” (he who had killed 
his brother, and whom he watched indefatigably) “had just had his 


336 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


supper, and was standing on the threshold of his door holding his 
sword. -I contrived to approach him unobserved with a large dagger 
in my hand, resembling a hunting-knife. I hoped to cut off his head 
at one blow; but he gave so sudden a jerk round that the point of my 
weapon only reached his left shoulder, breaking the bone. He got up, 
dropped his sword, and, sick with pain, began torun. I pursued him, 
overtook him in a few paces, and raising my dagger over his head, 
which he held very low, I thrust it into him in such a way that it 
lodged between the bone of the neck and the back of the head so 
firmly that, notwithstanding all my efforts, I was unable to withdraw it. 
I abandoned my dagger, therefore, and fled.” His reputation, any- 
how, cannot have been of the best, for he was, for a moment, suspected 
of being the coiner of money, by whose help forgers were infesting — 
Rome with false coin. 

Lastly, the account of the rapid and summary blow with a dagger, 
which he inflicts upon his rival Pompeo, the goldsmith, for whom he 
lies secretly in wait, cannot but make one shudder with a feeling of 
intense disgust. The manners and customs of that period were, 
doubtless, cruel; but there are honest and good artists, such, for in- 
stance, as Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, and Raphael, who passed 
through them untainted, at least with the blood of their rivals. Benvenuto 
Cellini is a boaster who had the good fortune to practise the trade of 
an honest man, and the still better luck to be able to hold a pen. 

Paul Farnese was the next to wear the papal tiara, under the title 
of Paul IIT. He was a grave, firm, and sagacious old man. He 
appreciated the goldsmith’s talent in Benvenuto, and gave him an 
order for some coins—among others, a scudo, representing St. Paul 
and the allegorical legend, Vas electionis. But Benvenuto seems 
to have quarrelled with the Prince Pietro Paolo Farnese, for whom 
the Pope had a fatherly affection, and he accused him of having 
designed to poison the Prince. 

Upon this, Benvenuto started for Venice; and thence he went to 
Florence, where he received from Alessandro ‘de’ Medici an order for 
executing his coms. His first production was a piece of silver, of 
forty sous in value, representing on the obverse the head of the Duke 
Alessandro, and on the reverse, the figures of St. Cosmo and St. 
‘Damian. “TI also made designs for the Giulii.* On one side I engraved 


* The Giulio was a Papal silver coin, value 6d. 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 337 


a profile of St. John, seated, and holding a book in his hand. In my 
opinion, I had as yet produced nothing to equal this ; on the reverse, - 
I placed the arms of Duke Alessandro. For half-giulii, I engraved, 
next, a head of St. John. It was the first full face ever coined on 
so thin a piece of silver.” 

During this time, the 15th of August, the date at which Cellini was 
to obtain absolution for all his crimes and larcenies, was drawing nigh. 
He received, in the Pope’s name, an invitation to come and purge 
away his last homicidal crime. Leaving to his pupil, Pietro Paolo, a 
Roman, the necessary instructions for the striking of the coins, he 
started, and followed in the procession of the Madonna, with the 
cloak of sky-blue silk, and so found grace and was absolved. 

For some time past he had applied himself to the chiselling on 
steel of a medallion of Alessandro de’ Medici, of which he made the wax 
model in two hours. It was at the very time when that tyrant was 
killed by his companion in debauchery, Lorenzo, and also when 
Charles V. was returning, victorious, from his expedition against 
Tunis. The triumphal arches raised on this occasion were nume- 
rous and magnificent, and the King made his triumphal entry into 
Rome with marvellous pomp and grandeur. The Pope had in his 
possession a book containing the services in honour of the Virgin, 
which was filled with valuable and precious miniatures: he was pro- 
posing to offer it to the Spanish monarch as a present, and ordered 
Benvenuto to make for it a cover of massive gold, richly chiselled, 
and ornamented with precious stones, to the value of six thousand 
crowns. 

Pope Paolo IIT. (Farnese) was not so liberal as Clement VII., and, 
on the other hand, our Florentine artist had no intention of being 
underpaid. Having drawn but small profit out of the large work 
that had just been entrusted to him, he resolved to go and offer his 
services to Francis I. The King of France held him in high esteem 
ever since he had possessed the medal of Atlas, presented to him after 
the death of Frederico Ginori, by whose orders it had been made. 
Benvenuto, therefore, left Rome. Passing through Padua, he be- 
thought himself that he would go and kiss the hand of Messer 
Bembo, not as yet a cardinal; and he made a model in wax of his 
head, with a figure of Pegasus, in the midst of a wreath of myrtle, 
on the reverse. He then travelled through Switzerland, stopping 

Z 


338 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


at; Liyons on the way, and at the end of four days started fot Paris 
with his pupil, Ascanio, 

He went straight to the house of one Rosso, and knocked at big 
door. He stated that he had formerly lent him a sum of about ten 
scudi, to subsist upon, and that he had rescued him from the fury of 
the pupils of Raphael, whose works he cried down. But Rosso re- 
ceived him coldly, and led him to understand that France at that time 
could think of nothing but war.: Whether true or false, this assertion 
angered Cellini, and a coldness ensued between him and Rosso. They 
parted abruptly ; Cellini went and lodged with Squazella, a ae of 
Andrea del Sarto. 

Rosso had only spoken the truth; Cellini had come at the ak of 
times. The finances of the kingdom, already much undermined by 
the luxury of its ostentatious monarch, were altogether absorbed by 
preparations for the war then about to break out. Francis I. granted 
Cellini a few moments’ audience at Fontainebleau, and brought him 
home in his suite as far as Lyons. There Cellini fell ill, and so did 
Ascanio; and had scarcely recovered when he was seized with a desire 
to return to his own country, and with suppressed spite and vexation 
he returned to Florence, crossing the Simplon. 

On his way, he had long conversations with the Cardinal of Ferrara, 
who from that moment seems to have made up his mind to mono- 
polise him. He received from that prelate, who as yet was only 
endowed with an abbey at Lyons, sufficient money to make a silver ewer 
and basin, which, later on, and during his second voyage, he prevailed 
upon Francis I. to accept. 

In passing, he greets the Due Ercule d’Este. At Rome he opens 
a shop, -and employs as many as eight workmen. The Cardinal of 
Ferrara, who, no doubt, had mentioned him to Francis L, writes him 
word to return to France, when he suddenly finds himself arrested, 
interrogated, and locked up in the Castle of St. Angelo. He was 
then about thirty-seven years of age. Some workmen had, either 
justly or unjustly, denounced him as the author of the appropriation 
of a portion‘of the gold tiaras of Clement VII. to a far more serious 
extent than he himself had been willing to admit. 

Then commences a chapter of the most ineredible and grotesque — 
romance. He states that he is claimed by the King’s ambassador, 
M. de Montluc, but in vain. He attempts, with the aid of the sheets’ 


SALT-CELLAR OF GOLD ENAMELLED, REPRESENTING EARTH AND OCEAN. 


Page 339 


(By Benvenuto Cellini. In the Museum of Antiques at Vienna. Ambaraz Collection.) 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 339 


of his bed, cut up into strips and knotted together so as to form a 
kind of rope, to effect an escape, in the course of which he breaks one - 
of his legs. He takes refuge with the Cardinal Cornaro, but he is 
very soon discovered, caught again, and thrown into a dungeon, in 
which there is only just sufficient light, and that but for one hour in 
the day, to enable him to read a few leaves of the Bible, and the 
chronicles of Giovanni Villani. He then pretends that an attempt is 
made to poison him; but, in reality, his health is failing. Fever 
seizes upon that heated brain, excites him, and causes him to converse 
with Christ in miraculous visions. Imagine what must have passed 
in the mind of this caged jaguar! All this part of his ‘“‘ Memoirs” 
sometimes attains a degree of eloquence which touches us in spite of 
ourselves. | 

At last the Cardinal of Ferrara, taking advantage of an auspicious 
moment, obtains his forgiveness and absolution from the Pope, and 
has him set at liberty, at the very moment when he was probably on 
the eve of madness. All this took place in 1539. 

When once he is out of prison, the artist sets to work again, and 
begins by completing the ewer and basin of silver which he had begun 
for the Cardinal of Ferrara. He engraved for him besides, on a 
seal, two little subjects—St. John preaching in the Desert, and St. 
Ambrosius, on horseback, driving the Arians before him with a whip. 
This was another opportunity to compete with the illustrious Lautizio, 
of whom he was so jealous. 

It was then that he made for that same cardinal the model of the 
celebrated salt-cellar, representing the Harth and the Ocean, the only 
well-authenticated and important piece of his that has survived. 
This is the somewhat inexact description he has left us of it: “On 
an oyal base, about twelve inches long (deux tiers de brasse *), I placed 
two figures, representing Earth and Ocean, rather more than a palm 
in dimensions (three inches), sitting with their legs interlaced, in allu- 
sion to those long arms of the sea which, in some places, reach far into 
jand. In Ocean’s left hand I placed a ship, splendidly and minutely 
worked, destined to hoid the salt. The god was seated on four sea- 

* Two-thirds of a brasse. At page 341 we find that Francis I. ordered Cellini to 
execute twelve statues of exactly his own height, viz. nearly four brasses ; this, sup- 
posing him to be six feet high, makes a brasse equal to eighteen inches, or a cubit. 


Therefore two-thirds of this measurement gives us twelve inches as the length of the 
salt-cellar.—-Ep. 
Z 2 


340 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


horses, holding his trident in his right hand. Earth, represented by a 
woman as graceful and as beautiful as I could conceive her to be, 
rested one hand on a richly decorated temple, destined to hold pepper. 
In the other she held a long cornucopia, m which I had combined 
everything I knew of that was most beautiful. Beneath the goddess 


were seen all the beautiful animals which the earth produces, and 


under Ocean I had placed all the fishes and-shells I was able to 
introduce in so limited a space. Lastly, the oval stand itself was 
covered with rich and numerous ornaments.” The description he 
gives of it in his “ Treatise on Goldsmith’s Work,” is still less correct 
than this. What he has neglected to state is, that this great work of 
metal chasing is, in great measure, enamelled: Neptune is seated on 
a shell, which is covered with a blue drapery, sprinkled with fleur-de-lis 
of gold; the saddle of the elephant on which Cybele reclines is also 
decorated with fleur-de-lis, similarly, on a green surface; on each side 
of the temple visible in our engraving—itself taken from a photo- 


eraph—Hercules and Abundance are standing in niches, surmounted — 


with escutcheons bearing the arms of France and an F, the initial of 
Francis I. The whole salt-cellar is tightly serewed on to a base or 
stand of ebony, where the Four Hours of the day are alternately 
represented with the Four Winds. The whole moves along on tiny 
ivory casters, that are half-hidden in the wooden stand, | 

When, after his return to France with his pupils, Ascanio and 
Paolo, in 1548, and his installation by main force in the house 
called the Petit-Nesle, Benvenuto had finished this piece, of which 
the whole is as ungraceful and ill-combined as the details of it are in- 


genious and superlatively executed, the King, overjoyed, bestowed on him — 


1000 franes, in old gold, of full weight. ‘Twenty-seven years after, 
Charles IX., on the occasion of his marriage with Elizabeth of Austria, 
daughter of Maximilian IT., distributed presents to his guests ; and the 
Archduke Ferdinand, uncle to his affianced bride, received, among 
other things, an ewer of onyx, a gold cup, and Cellini’s salt-cellar. It 
remained almost buried in the castle of Ambaraz, at Vienna; it was 
supposed to have been stolen, or else meanly melted down, when it 


was, by some piece of good fortune, brought to light; and catalogued 
for the first time in 1819. . 


On his arrival at Fontainebleau, Benvenuto had been immediately 


presented to the King, who, though he received him graciously, did 


JHWELLERY AND PLATE. 341 


not encourage him to look for the advantages he had dreamed. His 
pride was deeply wounded, and he attempted a precipitate, hurried 
fight, which was nearly costing him very dear. At last Cardinal 
Ferrara promised him appointments similar to those which had been 
bestowed on the painter Leonardo da Vinci, namely, 700 crowns per 
annum, with a payment for each of his works, of 500 crowns in gold 
in addition. He accepted this offer, and undertook “the models of 
twelve silver statues, destined to be used as candelabras around the 
King’s table. Francis I. wished them to represent six gods and six 
goddesses, of exactly his own height, which was nearly four brasses ” 
(quatre brasses), or six feet. He began with the models of Jupiter 
and Juno, Apollo and Vulcan. 

The King bestowed one hundred crowns in gold, as a pension, on his 
two pupils, and gave him the Hotel du Petit-Nesle to inhabit. But 
this hotel was in the hands of the Provost of Paris, who had sublet 
it, so that it was only after a real siege, and in threatening the lives 
of the tenants, that he was at last able to enter into possession, which 
he did, there making his first arrangements for casting. 

It was then that he commenced a bust of Julius Caesar, much 
larger than Nature, after a small copy of an admirable antique which 
he had brought with him from Rome. He also began another bust, 
of the same dimensions, of a young girl of great beauty. He called 
the head ‘“ Fontainebleau,” after the favourite residence of the King. 

This was the period of greatest activity in France. He has left us 
no details concerning his smaller works, his vanity prompting him to 
talk only of his great ones. But he incidentally mentions a number of 
trinkets for many great lords, among others, Pietro Strozzi, the Count 
of Anguil’ara (who was also already one of the patrons of Rosso), the 
Count di Pitigliano, and the Count de la Mirandole. When the King, 
accompanied by the Duchess d’Htampes, came to see him, he was 
astounded at the quantity of work he had undertaken. He had esta- 
blished a complete workshop, with German and French workmen, whom 
he exchanged for abler ones whenever he could chance to meet with 
them. 

No doubt Ascanio was at the head of the commercial portion of the 
establishment. He created for himself a sort of personal business, and 
fixed himself in France: we find his name mentioned in an account of 
Cardinal Hippolyte d’Este’s expenses, during the stay of D. Alphonzo, 


342 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


cousin to the Duke of Ferrara, in 1558 and 1559. He was then 
inhabiting the castle of the Petit-Nesle, given up to him by Benvenuto 
when he left; and he was known by the name of Ascanio di Nello. 
Certain documents go to prove that he was still at Paris in 1563. 

' Itis to that year, too, that we trace the gold medal of Francis L., 
now belonging to the Cabinet des Antiques. It is signed, and yet, 
strangely enough, Benvenuto makes no mention of it in his writings. 
It will certainly not bear comparison with the bronze medals of 
Pisanello and other Italian masters, but it possesses a certain richness 
and fulness of touch, and the profile of the King has an aristocratic 
turn, The mounting of a cameo, also at the Cabinet des Médailles, 
together with some vases and cups of hard materials, exposed in the 
Apollo Gallery at the Louvre, date in all probability likewise from that 
time. Nothing positively establishes their authenticity ; but we would 
draw attention to this group of Neptune and Amphitrite sitting on the 
edge of the cup, and standing boldly out, as in the salt-cellar. Figures, 
equally open to the charge of being out of place, are also to be found 
in a cup made of rhinoceros horn, mounted in enamelled gold, now at 
the Royal Museum of Munich. The distinguishing stamp of this 
precious and valuable series of articles lies in the exquisite labour of 
the details; the more reduced, the more perfect they are. The 
small figures of dolphins and sirens disporting, and dragons 
twisting their bodies into a thousand shapes, are masterpieces suf- 
ficiently delicate to explain the fashionable enthusiasm of a gallant 
court for so able a goldsmith, and the great vogue which his workshop 
enjoyed. 

In a third visit from the King, Benvenuto submitted to him a com- 
plicated scheme for a fountain, and also the model of the Nymph of 
Fontainebleau, afterwards carried out and applied to the door of the 
castle which looks out on the gardens, and called to this day the Porte 
Dorée. It was at this memorable interview that the King, who owned 
to not understanding the “ithos ” and pathos of his projects a ?Itali- 
enne, twice called him “ his friend.” The bas-relief in bronze of the 
Nymph of Fontainebleau is at the Louvre, in the “ Salles dela Sculpture — 
de la Renaissance.” It is a showy piece, which looks very common 
and very cold beside the refined elegances and the aristocratic supple- 
ness of the Diana of Jean Goujon. That huge virago, reclining near a 
spring, 1s neither chaste nor powerful in conception. A Parisian 


— 


——— > 


WS 


SS 


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Wi 
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sages: 

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Wy ACh EZ, 


THE NYMPH OF FONTAINEBLEAU. 


‘Hieh relief in Bronze. by Cellini, At the Louvre, in the Museum of the Sculpture of the Renaissance.) 


Page 342, 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 343 


damsel, with whom he was much taken, and whom, by-the-bye, he 
treated with the most revolting brutality, was the model for it. The 
stag’s head in relievo is of very inferior invention, and as to the dogs 
and wild beasts grouped at the feet of the nymph, or behind her 
shoulder, they are sketched with more dash and “chic” than science. 
It is third-rate sculpture, and Francis I. would have found far better 
and far greater talent in his own French school, if he had deigned to 
look for it and make use of it. 

Unfortunately for him, Benvenuto had forgotten, or, what is more 
probable still, his foolish vanity had neglected to secure the good 
graces of the Duchess d’Etampes, and consult her on the designs and 
projects he submitted to the King. 

lt was useless later to bow humbly and endeavour to ingratiate 
himself; the blow had been struck, and the offence given. One day 
he betook himself to St. Germain, where the court happened to be 
staying, armed with a small vase, charming in design and execution, 
with which he hoped to reinstate himself in the good graces of -the 
Duchess. He was kept waiting in the anteroom a whole day, until he 
was compelled to leave, half-dead with hunger, and, as he himself 
states, “devoutly hoping that madam might go to the deuce.” Thence 
he went to the Cardinal de Lorraine, to whom he presented the vase, 
only begging him in return to retain for him the good graces of the 
King. The worthy Cardinal received him most cordially, and forced 
him to accept in return a very large sum of money. But this was a 
dangerous game to play, and it only increased the hatred of Madame 
dEtampes. One of the cleverest of the revengeful tricks the 
favourite played him was to sow dissension between Benvenuto and the 
Primatice, whose services pleased the King so well that he had given 
him the Abbey of St. Martin. 

As soon as he had finished the famous Jupiter—of which no traces 
are left—Benvenuto had it taken to the Palace of Fontainebleau, where 
the court then was. The Primatice, after bringing away some pre- 
cious moulds from Rome, had just recently had them cast in bronze, 
and with very great success. The Jupiter, as we know, was of 
silver, mounted on a pedestal, which rested on a wooden stand. It 
was exhibited in the room in which the Primatice’s modern antiques 
chanced to be, which room was also hung round with paintings of the 
richest colouring by Rosso. In the presence of all the court, Ascanio 


me MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


pushed forward the statue, which was on casters, to where the King 
stood, at the same time “giving it a particular movement, which lent 
it a life-like appearance.” Cellini, always studious of complete effects, 
had, in what represented lightning in the god’s hand, inserted a piece 
of lighted wax taper. Naturally, the Duchess d’Etampes could not 
let such an occasion pass for a display of her antagonism, and began 
admiring the antiques in preference to the Jupiter tonans. At this 
Cellini but ill concealed his vexation. 
He was ordered to be silent. In great 
agitation he tore off passionately a bit 
of the drapery which he had thrown 
over the legs of his god. ‘Let us men- - 
tion in passing that five of the Pri- 
matice’s casts are still in existence, and 
ornament the gardens of the Tuileries ; 
these are the Laocoon, the Ariadne, the 
Apollo, the Venus, and the Commo- 
dus. ‘The workmanship of them is 
incomparably good. | 
Suddenly, without any apparent rea- 
son for it, unless it was that the King 
had fallen ill, without having completed 
a colossal statue of Mars which he had 
begun, Cellini starts one fine evening 
for Italy. The “traitor Ascanio” was 
despatched after him, and rejoined him 
at midnight, doing his best to assure 
—= him that “those rascals of treasurers 
PERSEUS. were crying ‘ Thief! thief! so loudly,” 


Statuette in Bronze, attributed to Cellini. ‘ 
(Collection of M. Ch. Davillier.) it had become urgently necessary that 


the three great vases of silver which 
Benvenuto had taken away with him by mistake should be returned ! 
There was nothing for it but to unpack them! 

Cellini reached Florence in August, 1545. He immediately went to 
Duke Cosmo, then at his villa of Poggio. In this first interview was 
started the scheme for the Perseus, destined to be placed in the great 
place already celebrated by Donatello’s statue and by the David of 
Michael Angelo. The model of it in wax was liked, and finally placed 


JEWELLERY .AND PLATE. 345 


in the Museum of Florence, where it is now. It is not improbable 
that the statuette we here reproduce was one of Cellini’s first attempts, 
or models, for the Perseus. | 

He had been at Florence scarcely a year when his conduct caused a 
fresh outbreak, and made him fly for refuge to Venice. This he calls 
“the prodigious variety of means with which his cruel ill-fortune used 
to persecute him.” He is then in Venice for a time, where he visits 
Titian, Lorenzo de’ Medici, with whom he had been intimate in Paris, 
and Sansovino, whom he had previously known in Rome and at Flo- 
rence. Perhaps there may have been a perceptible desire on his 
part to act as a spy, judging, at least, by the furious glances that the 
' Prior Strozzi and Lorenzino cast at him. This is rather corroborated 
by the fact of his secret return to Florence after a stay of only a 
few days. 

He very soon reinstated himself in the good graces of the palace, 
whence he had for a time been estranged by his display of temper. 
Three works were engaging him at this time: the Perseus, at which 
he worked with great. ardour and perseverance ; the making of small 
articles for the toilet and of jewellery, for which the Duchess, woman 
that she was, cared for above all things; and his ardent competition 
with Baccio Bandinelli, whom he called the “new sculptor.” For the 
Duchess he made a few little cups of silver, ornamented with beautiful 
and precious masks, a /’antique, and also a trinket, in the shape of a ring 
for the little finger, which she despatched to Philip II. This was the 
time of his most violent passions; his jealousy of Baccio Bandinelli 
passes all bounds, and almost makes him mad with fury. Some of the 
pages of his “ Memoirs” reek of blood and bile. 

He sculptured in marble an Apollo and Hyacinth, and also a Nar- 
cissus. This last, in the flood caused by the Arno overflowing its 
banks, and entering his studio, was accidentally thrown down, and 
broken across the chest; but he readjusted it cleverly, and hid the 
seam with a wreath of flowers. 

The year 1548 was a memorable one in Benvenuto Cellini’s life. 
We would gladly call it the year of his purification. It saw him com- 
plete the casting of his Perseus; it is not only Cellini’s chef-dceuvre, 
but it is a work in which he threw, almost without being aware of it, 
all his talent, his care, his energy, his pride, all even of his resources. 
He arose from it another man. No more excesses, no more violence, 


346 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


and no more theft; it seems as if Cellini’s heart had been sifted and 
tried in the furnace he prepared for the casting of his work. 

He first cast the Medusa, which the young hero is:trampling under 
foot, and whose arm, which exceeds the boundary of the pedestal, is, 
in my opinion, false in harmony. Then he proceeded to finish the 
waxen model of the statue, while he received the visits of Duke 
Cosmo. Of course he exaggerates the commonplace observations 
made by his Excellency on the subject. In the interval he had com- 
pleted a colossal bust of the Duke. It is still at Florence. A friend, 
in whose judgment we place the utmost confidence, has assured us it 
is cleverly modelled and nobly designed. 

The day for the casting arrived. Cellini had overcome a thousand 
mean tricks of the court, and much personal discouragement, besides 
having spent all the money he had made by the execution of the 
jewels mounted for the Duchess. We -cannot, then, do better than 
quote the sculptor’s own words, only reminding the reader how closely 
these pages are connected with the tragic experiences of Bernard 
Palissy in his first attempt at producing enamel. 

“ Animated with fresh ardour, I collected all my forces, and, with 
the little money left in my purse, I purchased a few piles of pine-wood 
from the forest of Serristori, near Montelupo. In awaiting their 
arrival, I covered my Perseus with clay that I had prepared some 
months previously, so that it might be in the required condition. As 
soon as I had completed my earthen mould (chape being the technical 
term for it), carefully strengthened with strong bands of iron, I 
began, with the help of a slow fire, to melt the wax from it, which 
came out by a number of apertures for that purpose; for the more 
numerous these are the better the mould is filled. After extracting 
the wax, I built up around my Perseus, that is, around the mould of 
it, a perforated oven made of bricks placed one over the other, so as 
to leave between each of them an empty space, in order to facilitate 
the action of the fire: after which, for the space of two days and 
two nights, I ceased not to heat the oven continually until all oe wax 
was melted out, and the mould completely baked. 

“The next thing I did was to dig a pit wherein to bury my mould, 
according to the rules of my art. When that was done, I took my 
mould, and with the help of pulleys and strong ropes I raised it with 
care, and suspended it about a foot above the level of my furnace, 


ANY 


BSN SS 
F ob 


PEHKSEUS. 


(Statue in bronze by Benvenuto Cellini, at Florence.) 
Page 346. 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 347 


so placing it that it should precisely gravitate towards the centre of 
the pit. I then let it gently down to the bottom of the furnace, 
where it rested with all possible precision. This furnace I had filled 
with ingots of copper and bronze, heaped one upon the other, being 
careful to leave between them space sufficient for the flames to pass, 
in order that the metal should heat and liquefy faster. . 

“T next resolutely commanded my workmen to light the furnace, 
and throw large pieces of pine-wood into it. Owing to the resin which 
oozed out of this wood, and to the admirable way in which my furnace 
was constructed, the fire burnt so rapidly that I had to feed it now 
on one side and now on the other, which greatly fatigued and ex- 
hausted me. Nevertheless, I redoubled my efforts. To add to our 
misfortune, our workshop caught fire, and for some time we feared 
that the roof would fall in upon us. On the other hand, so strong a 
draught of air reached me from the garden side, and so furious a storm 
of rain, that my furnace was gradually getting colder. After struggling 
against these deplorable accidents for some hours, I became so worried 
and harassed, that my constitution, though robust, could no longer 
bear such severe hardship, and I was suddenly attacked by a most 
violent intermittent fever ; in short, I was so ill that I found myself 
under the necessity of lying down upon my bed. Thus in great 
sorrow I went to bed, and was no sooner there than I ordered the 
maids to carry victuals and drink into the shop for all the men at 
work, adding: ‘Alas! to-morrow I shall have ceased to live! In 
this manner did I continue for two hours in a violent fever, which I 
perceived was increasing every moment; I was incessantly crying out, 
‘I am dying! I am dyimg!’ My housekeeper, whose name was 
Maria Fiore da Castel del Rio, was one of the most sensible and. affec- 
tionate women in the world; she rebuked me for giving way to vain 
fears, and at the same time tended me with the greatest kindness and 
care imaginable. However, seeing me so very ill, she could not con- 
tain herself, but shed a flood of tears that she endeavoured to conceal 
from me. 

“Whilst we were both in this deep affliction, a man entered the 
room, who in his person appeared to be as crooked and distorted as a 
ereat 8, and began to express himself in these terms, in a tone of 
voice as dismal and melancholy as that of those who exhort and pray 
with persons who are about to be execute: ‘ Alas! poor Benvenuto, 


348 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


your work is spoiled, and the misfortune admits of no remedy.’ No 
sooner had I heard the words uttered by this messenger of evil than I 
cried out so loud that my voice might be heard to the seventh heaven, 
and I jumped out of bed. I began immediately to dress, distributing 
kicks the while to the maid-servants and to the boys, as they offered to 
help me on with my clothes. I complained bitterly, saying: ‘Oh! 
the envious and treacherous wretches! this is a piece of premeditated 
villany; but I swear by the living God that I will sift it to the 
bottom, and before I die give such proofs of who I am, as shall not 
fail to astonish the whole world!’ | 

“Having huddled on my clothes, I hurried, with a mind quite 
upset, to the workshop, where I found all those whom I had left so 
alert and in such high spirits standing in the utmost confusion and 
astonishment. I thereupon exclaimed: ‘ Listen, all of you, to what 
I am about to say; and since you either would not or could not follow 
the instructions with which I left you, obey me now that I am 
present ; my work is before us, and let none of you dare to oppose or 
contradict me, for such cases as this require strength of arm, and not 
counsel !’ 

“T went directly to examine the furnace, and saw all the metal in 
it concreted. I thereupon ordered two of the helpers to step over the 
way to Capretta, the butcher, for a load of young oak, which had 
been above a year drying, and which Ginevra, the wife of the said 
Capretta, had previously placed at my disposal. Upon their bringing 
me the first bundles of it, I began to fill the grate. This sort of oak 
makes a brisker fire than any other wood whatever; but the wood of 
the poplar and the pine is used in casting artillery, because it makes a 
gentle fire. As soon as the concreted metal felt the power of this 
violent fire, it began to brighten and glitter. In the meantime I 
ordered the windows to be set open, and sent some of the men to the 
roof of the house to put the fire out, which the flames from the furnace 
had again set fire to. On the garden side I had caused some planks 
and pieces of old calico to be so placed as to shelter us from the rain. 
As soon as I had applied the proper remedy to each evil, I cried out 
loudly to my men to bestir themselves and lend a helping hand; so 
that when they saw that the concreted metal was beginning to melt 
again, the whole body of men obeyed me with zeal and alacrity ; every 
man did the work of three. 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 349 


“Then I caused a mass of pewter, weighing about sixty pounds, to 
be thrown upon the metal in the furnace, which, with the help of the 
brisk wood fire and the stirring of it, sometimes with iron and some- 
times with long poles, soon became completely dissolved. Finding 
that, contrary to the expectation of my ignorant assistants, I had 
effected what at first had seemed as difficult as the raising of the 
dead, I recovered my vigour, so aS no longer to perceive whether I 
had any fever, nor had I any longer any. fear of death. 

“Suddenly a loud detonation was heard, and a glittering of fire 
flashed before our eyes, as if it had been the darting of a flash of 
lightning! Upon the appearance of this extraordinary phenomenon, 
terror seized on all present, and on none more than myself. The 
tremendous noise being over, we began to stare at one another. We 
very soon perceived that the cover of the furnace had burst asunder 
and flown off, and that the bronze was running over. I immediately 
caused the mouths of my mould to be opened, and at the same time to 
knock out the two tampions. 

“ But finding that the metal did not run with its usual velocity, and 
apprehending that the cause of this was that the fusibility of the metal 
was injured. by the violence of the fire, I ordered all my pewter dishes 
and porringers, which were in number about two hundred, to be col- 
lected. With a half of them I filled my troughs, and the other I cast 
into the furnace. Upon this, my workmen perceived that my bronze 
was completely dissolved, and that my mould was filling; they now 
assisted and obeyed me with redoubled joy and alacrity. In seeing to 
one part and then to another, I said in my heart, ‘ Blessed art Thou, 
O my God, who by Thine almighty power didst rise from the dead 
and ascend in glory to Heaven!’ At that very moment I found that 
my mould was full. I fell on my knees, and thanked God with my 
whole soul! . . . Then, having spied a dish of salad which stood on 
a little bench hard by, I ate of it with great and excellent appetite, 
and drank with all my journeymen and assistants, and went joyful 
and in good health to bed, for there were still two hours of night ; and 
I rested as well and as thoroughly as if I had been troubled with no 
manner of disorder. In the meantime, my good housekeeper, without 
my having left any orders with her, had provided a young well- 
fattened capon for my dinner, so that when I arose, which was not 
till near dinner-time, she accosted me merrily, and said, ‘Is this the 


350 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


man who thought he was dying?’ All my people having got over 
their fright and panic, and without delay procured earthen vessels to 
supply the place of the pewter dishes and porringers we had broken 
up, we all sat down very cheerily to dinner ; indeed, I do not remem- 
ber having ever in oe life eaten a meal with greater satisfaction, or 
with a better appetite.” 

_ When Benvenuto uncovered his statue, the casting of 1t was stesdeunl 
with the exception of the toes and half of the right foot. When it 
was placed on its pedestal, which was itself elaborately and exquisitely 
finished, and uncovered, it won for him a thousand eulogiums, and, 
according to the fashion of the time, as many sonnets. .This Perseus 
is not, however, a work of power ; if a miracle were suddenly to change 
him into flesh and bone, he would infallibly fall forward ; his legs are 
commonplace, and his hands are badly drawn; the members of the 
Medusa are doubled up like those of a trussed fowl. ‘The general 
effect, however, is elegant, the outline easy, and the attitude ‘modest; 
but proud ; it represents the action of a young nervous and courageous 
lad, who has just achieved an extraordinary exploit: his knitted brow 
and quivering eyelid, his hand, which is tightly grasping the handle 
of his sword, menacingly, all this is well thought over and well ex- 
pressed. As to the detail, the helmet especially, and the statuettes 
which form the angles of the pedestal, it is in these that the able 
goldsmith reveals his talent. 

- Benvenuto had studied much and long. M. Paul de St. Victor, 
with his exquisite appreciation of the Italian Renaissance, has been 
careful not to overlook this fact; and after quoting a fine passage 
of the “ Discours de Cellini sur les Principes de ’Art du Dessin,” he 
adds: “This enthusiasm for the beauty of the human form was 
shared by that whole period. We know with what feryour Michael 
Angelo studied the anatomy of corpses, placing a candle in their navel 
so as to study them far into the night. A skeleton is now no longer, 
as in the Middle Ages, merely the hideous vestige of corruptible flesh, 
but the admirable framework of vigour and beauty. Man bends over 
a death’s head and examines it with the greatest admiration and 
interest ; he no longer sees in it repugnance, but the secret of human 
life; he measures on the recesses of the cranium the orbits of Apollo’s 
eyes, and from its grinning mouth he draws the gracious smile of 
Venus. The gods, nymphs, heroes, angels, and goddesses, which orna- 


/ 


Y 
/ 
/ 


We 


i 


{ 


ff 
/ 
i} 


, MOUNTED IN GOLD. 


SSS 


SS 


ASPER 


VASE AND CUP OF ORIENTAL J 


i. In the Collection of the Gemmes et Joyaux de la Couronne at the Louvre.) 


1n 


. 


(Attributed to Benvenuto Cell 


Page 350. 


JHWHLLERY AND PLATE. 351 


ment with their graceful forms the palaces and temples about us, grew 
out of a mass of corruption, as flowers do out of rotten heaps. The 
sixteenth century inaugurated the plastic triumph of Death.” 

The remainder of Benvenuto Cellini’s works and life contain 
nothing wherewith to rivet our attention here. He might have 
murmured with that Latin poet: “ Exegi monumentum.” He made 
many busts, trinkets, a Neptune, but his Perseus was his pre- 
eminent work ; and it is that which, putting aside his works in gold 
and silver —now irreparably destroyed — secures his life in the 
long-lived pages of history. On the 16th of May, 1563, he was 
chosen, together with Bronzino, Giorgio Vasari, and l’Ammanati, 
to represent the artists of Florence at the funeral of Michael Angelo. 
We were not wrong, then, in saying that his famous statue had 
“reinstated” him. ‘Then the lion became a lamb, but a quarrelsome 
lamb still; he lost his claws gradually, one by one, and his teeth, 
which he still showed now and then to Baccio Bandinelli; he changed 
his den into a sheepfold; the last pages of his “ Memoirs” are full of 
the account of his reconciliation with his country neighbours. He 
died on the 15th of February, 1571. 

Notwithstanding his boast{ulness and self-gratulation, there can be 
no doubt that he occupied an important place among the artists of his 
time ; nor that Kings disputed him with Popes, and the aristocracy with 
Cardinals. The love of jewellery was the folly of the age, and men 
_ were subject to it as well as women, in Italy even more so than else- 
where. The taste, mannerism, and refinement made itself felt in 
poetry as well as in art. It was from Italy and their costly conquests 
that Louis XIT. and Francis I. brought the passion for Italian works 
to France—a passion only justifiable when it is aroused by personal 
superiority. 

All Europe joined in, the collecting of those small figures which 
Cellini was wont to stick on the spout or neck of his vases, or to make 
creeping along the stands of his ewers and cups. Jewellery became 
nothing but an embossing of bas-reliefs. ven ponderous Germany 
erew enthusiastic about it; and the reader may judge, from the ewer 
at the Louvre Museum, and which we have here separated from its 
basin, of the use she made of helmeted heads rising out of an urn like 
the exit of a chicken from its egg-shell; of triumphs in the shape of 
running friezes in the midst of trophies of arms and of musical instru- 


352 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


ments. For my part, I can think of nothing so mistaken as the 
starting-point of this ornamentation: satyrs, sitting more or less 
uncomfortably, like monkeys hitched on furniture, and handles, doing 
all in their power to conceal the place they emanate from, are 
masked with cords and ribbons, and fastened where they can, formally 
inviting one not to touch them! In this particular, again, the East 
gives us excellent lessons in taste, but she wisely abstains, in ornamen- 
tation, from the use of the human face. The Semitic races, who 
esteemed themselves even unto the making of gods after their own — 
image, have, without intending it, diminished the dignity of humanity 
by associating to it what should be secondary only—that is, the animal, 
actual or fantastic, the plant, or the flower. 

Benvenuto had, at Paris, met cath casters 
of whom he himself praises the ability and 
cleverness, although he states that “those 
old masters blessed the day and the hour in 
which they made his acquaintance.” French 
sculpture, however, had nothing to gain from 

| the advent of this matamoro, for Michel 

Prien rin Colombe, Ligier Richier, Pierre Bontemps, 

Germain Pilon, Jean Cousin, and Jean Goujon 

had already done, and certainly did subsequently, finer and better 
things than the Nymph of Fontainebleau. 

Among the Parisian goldsmiths, too, were some who were ae 
capable of maintaining the French tradition, which is light joined 
to grace. Such, for instance, is this ring, 
which has ‘‘ryen sans amour” for its motto. 
One of these goldsmiths, posterior to Benve- 
nuto—he was born in 1518—vwas master 
Etienne Delaulne. ‘There is one medal of his 
remaining, which is at the Cabinet des An- 
tiques, and which represents Henry I1.; all 
the rest of his work has perished. But we 
RING OF CHISELLED TRON oF THE FLAC the abundance—so French—of his ima- 

SNE EEE OSE ination, of his taste, and of his mind in the 

precious prints he engraved with his own 
hand, and in his pen and ink sketches on vellum. He seems to 
have quitted France from religious motives; and when he engraved 


(Sauvageot collection.) 


eee 


eae ———— = = eae SSSS585855SSS 55 


(German work of the Sixteenth century. Museum of the Lou 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE, 353 


this priceless view of the interior of his workshop—for it is evidently 
one of his clients who is stooping and speaking through the open 
window, while his workmen finish or commence a dish and a vase, 
and enamel some trinket—Delaulne was living at Augsburg, and was 


J. GUILLAUME SC, 


Ti rer 
QA TT 
eal hl mM 


MU pe i} 


1 i i) 
i 


inne 
TUTTE Test mt 
THE WORKSHOP OF STIENNE DELAULNE. 
(French goldsmith of the year 1576.) 


PTET V\ Hee STIS | BT 


BOUCOUAT DEL 


STEPHANYVS-Fj 
IN-AVCVSTA | 
ay 


very near the end of his earthly career. Owing to the quantity and choice 
of working material his engravings afforded to goldsmiths, enamellers, 
jewellers, pewter and tin potters, chisellers of iron, and carvers in wood, 
he obtained a very notable and very extended degree of influence ; and 
2A 


354 MASTERPIEOES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


it is much to be regretted that the name of Etienne Delaulne is not more 
familiar to the public ear. In every respect he deserves to be recognised. 
The jewels of the reign of Louis XIII. suddenly break off with the 
tradition of the allegorical figures of the Renaissance: the enamelled 
figures of virtues and vices, the combats of horsemen demonstrated in 
an oval no bigger than a nutshell, the deities of Olympus standing in 
niches,—all these give way to the taste for precious stones. This taste, 
we, for our part, cannot but applaud. The making of statues and bas- 
reliefs should be entirely left to the sculptor and statuary ; it is not as 
the representation of a figure that a 
jewel should be judged; at a little 
distance all the admirably minute 
workmanship of the Italian jewels 
disappears, and merely suggests an 
indistinct. blot. But, on the other 
hand, nothing can be so pleasing to 
the eye as the intense light and 
brilliancy of a well-cut and well- 
mounted diamond. It is certainly 
what best reminds one of that which 
is most mysterious, most living, and 
most attractive in the world, namely, 
the twinkling of a star. The pendant 
we reproduce here was composed by 
Gilles Légaré. In his series of pub- 
ON lished articles on French jewellery in 
DIAMOND PENDANT. the “ Gazette des Beaux Arts,” the only 
ae ee es es fault of which is that they were never 
~~" collected into one volume, M. Paul 
Mantz has said of it: “'This is the most reasonable, solid, and soberly 
French sort of jewel ever worn by the Montespans and Fontanges.” 
Although it has more variety of outline, and more subtleness of 
mounting, the jewel of the eighteenth century has less serenity and 
elegance. It made a use of enamel and gold that sometimes stood 
in the way of the stone’s brightness. It also made use of polished — 
steel and imitations of stones, which were not without a certain 
success; and in this we foresee the part which the middle class is 
about to take in the affairs of France. 


JEWHLLERY AND PLATE. 35 


Un 


The Empire has left us the names of celebrated jewellers, Thomire, 
Odiot, and others; but a heavy interpretation of the antique still pre- 
vailed. Who has not seen the high crowns, the combs which stand 
upright on the heads of Josephine, of the Queen Hortense, and of the 
ladies of the imperial court, in the pictures of David, and in the por- 


————— 
= MMi 


i] rarer 


en ina 


SOTAIN.S¢, 


VASE IN MASSIVE SILVER, 
(By Claude Ballin, Louis XIV.’s goldsmith.) 


traits of Prudhon and Gérard? Everything is becoming to a pretty 

woman, even that which is absurd. But when one actually handles 

one of these jewels, one is scarcely tempted to remember that Prudhon 

himself designed some of the jewels of his time. 

_ Now-a-days jewellery is still doing marvels, The English, who daily 
2a 2 


356 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


import workmen from us, at enormous wages—the English, and the 
English only—can compete with our Parisian jewellers; they have 
the same superiority with regard to the freshness of polish and bright- 
ness of colour of their metals ; ours, however, have pre-eminent chaste- 
ness of mounting, lightness, and strength; producing twice as much 


|| 


= 
er 


—— 


== 


TIMEPIECE BY GAUDRON. 
(Commencement of the eighteenth century. In M. A. Tainturier’s collection.) 


effect with half the number of stones. Workmanship is now more 
perfect than it ever was. The acquisition by the Louvre of the 
jewels in the Campana collection seems in ‘itself to have exercised over 
the art a most salutary influence. Our artists have since had broader 
views, and a better idea of uniting thought with execution. Thus, for 
example, if they imitate natural or artificial objects, such as animals or 


JHWHLLERY AND PLATE, 357 


flowers, they simplify the details, and devote their attention to put 
in relief what is chiefly characteristic, and neatly and distinctly to 
designate the differences of race and species. 


so! 


> 
Ro 


i es "a a 


MARIE ANTOINETTE’S TIMEPIECE, 
(In M. L. Double’s collection.) 


Jewellery, closely connected with feminine ornamentation, is infinitely 
more difficult to characterise than the goldsmith’s art, which belongs 


358 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


more exclusively to families; it follows woman in all the caprices of 
her head-dress, her clothing, and external habits. The style and 
fashion of jewellery may vary as often as twice in one year or season. 
Who will attempt to determine the exact year in which this collar or 
that bracelet, this belt-clasp or that spray for the hair, first left the 
jeweller’s workshop? ‘The art of the goldsmith is less changeable. 
Thus it is that one may, almost ‘with the certainty of being correct, 
state that the silver vase by Claude Ballin (p. 355) belonged to the 
period of Louis XIV., because we find great and remarkable analogy 
between it and those vases which were cast on the models of Lepautre 
for the Park at Versailles. The timepiece, also (p. 3856), which dates 
from the beginning of the eighteenth century, cannot but have belonged 
to a set of furniture in the style of the Grand Regne. These full 
arches, the cupolas with broken summit, and the volutes in the shape of 
a fiddle-bow, are also to be found in the Salon des Glaces a Versailles, 
and at the Louvre in the cornices of the ceiling of the Galerie 
d’Apollon. . 

Thus it is also with the timepiece of Marie Antoinette, belonging 
to M. L. Double (p. 857) ; it can only have struck in a boudoir of the 
eighteenth century. This urn, the central portion of which revolves on 
itself, so as to mark the hour under a stationary serpent’s tongue—the 
serpent itself being the emblem of eternity ; this profusion of precious 
stones scattered over the quiver; this torch, suspended across and 
fastened with a true lover’s knot; this elegant and useful monument, 
well-conceived and maryellously cast, inlaid, chiselled, gilt, and ena- 
melled : all combine to make of it a masterpiece inalienable from a period 
when the French spirit was most in possession of all its qualities and 
all its defects, and when it knew how most gracefully to display them. 

We might then almost find, as it were, one whole side of the 
luxurious face of the “ great reign,” were it not for the irreparable 
disasters which compelled Louis X!Y., vanquished and ruined, but 
always noble and proud, to send all his plate, jewellery, and the massive 
silver furniture of Versailles, to the Mint. We are acquainted with 
the outline of some of these sumptuous articles through the prints of 
Lepautre and of Bérain; there were even huge orange-tree boxes, — 
and sofas of solid metal. It was necessary to save the honour of 
France; but it was as great a sacrifice as when the captain of a ship 
gives the order for the cargo to be thrown overboard. 


PL 


{} i WG ; 


Y ih y 
we (a, 
= ‘al {. f 
< L 


ZZ 


CHURCH LAMP IN SILVER. 


(By Thomas Germain, towards the year 1750.) 
Page 358. 


Ct 


JHWELLERY AND PLATE, 359 


All the court followed the King’s example; St. Simon relates it 


a: il 


ff V ( 


SOTA/M 
SILVER CANDLESTICK, BY RGTTIERS, 


(Eighteenth century.) 


like a gentleman, and Madame de Sévigné wept over the loss of her 
jewel casket. The amount melted down was incalculable. It was in 


360 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


all probability at this time that all Cellini’s work disappeared, since 
we know that the King went so far as to throw into the crucible a 
small equestrian statuette of King Louis XIII., his father, which could 
not have fetched more than a few hundred crowns. . 

But is it not singular, with respect to Cellini, whose name was not 
yet forgotten, that all his works, intrinsically of small value, should 


6 
aoe 


NEF OF THE TIME OF LOUIS XV. 
(By Meissonnier, in 1745.) 


have disappeared, when candlesticks of the time of Louis XY., in 
massive silver, should still remain among us? It may truly be said 
that nothing but the Church treasures survived ; and they, too, by a 
singular fatality, were destined to be swallowed up in the final ship- 
wreck of the ancient monarchy. 

Louis XVI., too, on the 21st of September, 1786, ise orders to his 
plate-keeper to send to the Mint “a whole series of plates, dishes, and 


JHWHLLERY AND PLATE. 361, 


covers.” As to the destruction of the treasure of St. Denis, it was to 
our national history of the goldsmith’s art what the conflagration of 
the library at Alexandria was to the antique 
world. It was, as it were, the titles of nobility 
of the industrial art that France threw into 
the fire at this terrible conjuncture. 

We have now but few remarks to make. 
Each one of our readers will recognise the 
style of Louis XV. in this “nef,” of which 
we have already mentioned the use. Towards 
the year 1745 Meissonnier had it made for 
the King. The drawing of it only is known 
to us. It is evidently the sister of the lamp 
we have just illustrated, by Thomas Germain, 
1750, and has the same elaborateness of style, 
the same shells and blunt projecting corners, 
and the same wreaths of acanthus leaves. ‘To 
say the truth, we only half admire these spe- 
cimens of vegetation in metal; and if we had 
any great predilection for the industrial arts 
of the eighteenth century, it would not be in 
its ornamental plate. 

Under Louis XVI. a charming application 
was made of gold of different colours. This 
seal, made from a design by Moreau, is as 
charming from the variety of its colours as 
from the excellence of its engraving and 
design. It should seem as if the gold- 
smith had summoned the help of the painter. 
M. L. Double has in his possession a snuff- 
box that is a masterpiece of this style; 
M. Edward Lievre has reproduced it in 
his intelligent publication of “Celebrated seat or vevenenr-corovrep cot, 
Collections ;” yellow gold, green gold, and nd, ie ee 
red gold are combined and placed in ae 
juxtaposition, so as best to throw up the metal by contrast. 

Now-a-days electro-plating competes powerfully with silver plate. 
How then is it possible, when riches almost universally consist in the 


362 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


interest of money, to represent a few hundred thousand francs? ‘The 
eye is equally pleased and gratified with a result that only costs about 
ten thousand. So far, then, good sense is in accordance with vanity. 
We cannot therefore now hope to see again large orders, such as those 
given for the ornamentation of the table of the Duke of Orleans, 
wrought by Barye, or such especially as that of the table service of 
the Duc de Luynes. Has not the town of Paris, that gives the signal 
for official economy, issued an order for its grand service for gala days — 
to be made of electro-plate? We are, however, far from lamenting — 
this fact. The general effect is absolutely the same, and we hope that 
this one at least will never have to be sent to the Mint. 

Many a choice and elegant article has issued from the Se of 
goldsmiths in the present day; those, for instance, invented and 
modelled by Feuchéres, or by M. Klagman, or M. Vechte. We know 
the famous story of the shields by Feucheéres, which were sold to the 
King of Prussia as works by Cellini, and which, exhibited in his museum 
until the day that the fraud was discovered, gave birth to more than 
one dithyramb in honour of the sixteenth century! We might men- 
tion, among contemporaneous works, various cups and yases to be 
run for at races. Unfortunately, these chefs-d’cuvre are, for the 
most part, signed not by the artist who designed them, but by the 
maker who fabricated them; and we will not once again establish a 
series of mistakes over which the future will not have spare time 
enough to hold an inquest. If, therefore, we hear that a trinket or 
statuette, a ring or a cup, comes from such and such a shop, well and 
good; but let it not be said that it is the work of this or that master, 
for that is equivalent to saying that a particular book was written by 
the publisher or bookseller of whom one may chance to purchase it. 

It is impossible too loudly to protest against.so violent an injustice, 
calculated only to lead critics astray, lessen the productive force of 
real artists, and suppress the dignity and wholesome pride of a name. 
For this reason, in its increasingly interesting exhibitions the Union 
Centrale has peremptorily insisted that each man shall be responsible 
for his work. The public, warned thereby, showed itself to be as in- 
telligent and sensible as it always is. The loudest applause was 
bestowed on the glass cabinets of two young artists who, before having 
been able to set up a shop on their own account, had from time to 
time anonymously bestowed articles of great merit on the shops most 


BEER POT OF EMBOSSED SILVER, 


(By Messrs. Fanniére Brothers. Belonging to the Emperor.) 


Page 363. 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE. 363 


in renown and yogue ; these are the Brothers Fanniéres. We have 
selected from their works the beer-pot in embossed silver here repro-- 
duced. It was purchased, on the occasion of his first visit, by the 
Emperor. The hops creeping over it so ornamentally suggest its 
use; its shape, without being anything extraordinary, is simple and 
practical, and the whole thing is in excellent proportion. The work- 
manship is exceedingly good. By their production of other works of 
plate, Messrs. Fanniere Brothers have proved that their success in 
the working of this handsome article is not an exception with them. 

But this is almost a solitary attempt. The true artist embosser, 
the true chiseller in the spirit of the time, is that electric agent who 
can reunite particles of copper, silver, and gold into one galvanic 
solution, and place them, with startling precision and imperturbable 
patience wherever the galvanic current may chance to indicate. 
This is electro-plate. The poet has said with regard to the substitu- 
tion of printed books for manuscripts, “This will kill that ;” and it may 
also be uttered with reference to all our industrial arts. Invention 
can lose nothing by it, but, on the contrary, it may hope to gain new 
channels; but what is to become of the instrument? what is now the 
artist without the workman—the soul without the hand ? 


an eels ae 
Ad pose ae ig ae 
ie Ny 
p a ee 
rere 


A 
vt 


The art of Tapestry probably had its birth in India.—The veil which the mother of 
Hector bestowed on Minerva—The contest between Pallas and Arachne—The 
carpets of Smyrna and Caramania, woven by young girls. 

Tapestry penetrates to Europe, and first of all in France—The high-warp looms of 
the ninth century—The Condamnacion de Souper et de Banquet at the ducal 
museum of Nancy—The History of David and Bathsheba at the Cluny museum— 
The Adoration of the Virgin, from Van Hyck, at. Rome. 

The Italian school interrupts the order—The cartoons of Raphael at the South 
Kensington Museum—The History of Scipio and the Fruits of War, by Giulio 
Romano, in the Louvre collection of drawings—France owes them to an English 
painter—Correspondence on the subject of hangings, exchanged between the nuncio 
G. Bentivoglio, and Cardinal Borghese—Les Verdures de Mons. Guillaume, in 
DT’ Amour médecin. 

Summary account and history of the Gobelins manufactory—Francis I and his royal 
mansions—Henry II., Henry IV., and Louis XI1V.—Lebrun and Desportes— 
Boucher and his pupils--The tapestries which are signed by the contractors— 
The Gobelins of our day; Mons. Chabal Dussurgey—Mons. de Saint-Seine’s 
Persian carpet—Details on the fabrication of high-warp tapestries, and on the 
low-warp carpets, termed Savonnerie carpets—The future of the Gobelins’ manu- 
factory—The use, on a small and private scale, of the Jacquart loom—Conelusion, 

Tapestries worked by hand, and the Venetian embroideries of the sixteenth century— — 
Rosalba Carriera—Finis. 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS. 


Ir is in India, that cradle of humanity and garden of the decorative 
arts, that the art of tapestry had its birth. It is under the tents and 
in the palaces of the vast heap of ancient kingdoms which we call the 
Kast, that, during the long repose of an all but vegetating existence, 
women’s needles for the first time traced representations of birds, 
flowers, and sometimes imaginary scenes, upon cloth. It was as much 
to meet a necessity as it was to indulge luxury that the workman’s 
shuttle learnt to weave carpets which were soft to the feet of the 
master as the skins and furs of rare beasts. Now-a-days, carpets and 
implements of war are what chiefly remain of the fabulous splendours 
of Eastern rajahs. A Russian traveller relates that when these rajahs 
passed through a town, in ceremonies of state, cashmere shawls of 
great antiquity and rare beauty were spread out before their horses’ 
feet for them to tread upon. A carpet, as coarse as a plait of reeds, is 
the sole furniture of these wandering and itinerant jewellers, who work 
gold with the hands and instruments of fairies. It is on a carpet that 
the fakirs, with their legs bent under them, and themselves immovable, 
converse night and day with Nature. It is on a carpet, more or less 
valuable according to his means, that the Mussulman turns his face 
towards Mecca to say his prayers. 

Judging by the price that rich Astatics set upon it, in periods which 
are to us pre-historic, we can imagine the perfection to which tapestry, 
worked by the hand or woven by the loom, was brought. Homer 


368 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL an Bs 
often makes mention of it. When danger seems first to threaten 7 0} 
Hector says to his mother: “The most elegant and the largest iL 
. thou hast in thy possession, that which chad lovest best, spread out. ‘ 
on the knees of glorious-haired Minerva. ... He had no sooner : 
uttered it than the queen herself descended into the scented chamber 
where were kept veils artistically worked by the Sidonian women, which — 
the god-like Paris had brought from Sidon.” The one she selected - 
was the finest in the variety of its embroidery; “it shone like a 
star.” 

In the glass cabinets of the Egyptian Museum of the Louvre are 
exposed, among the articles from the collection Clot-Bey, fragments of: & 
tissues which ‘emigneanee. according to the opinion of connoisseurs, 
the first use of a low-warp (basse-lisse) loom. 

In his “ Metamorphoses,” Ovid relates, without appearing to fathom 
its hidden meaning, the combat between Pallas and Arachne; it is a 
fable which Greece had certainly borrowed from Asia, and which 
signalizes the traditional jealousy the artist feels with regard to a too 
clever workman. Arachne was Lydian; her father was a workman 
of Colophon, who was celebrated for the beauty of his purple dyes. 
When Pallas, provoked by Arachne, reveals herself, “they both 
sit down, and stretch the threads of the double warp upon a light 
frame ; they fix them; a reed divides them; started by their fingers, 
the shuttle slips and forms the weft; then they consolidate the work 
by inserting a comb, whose teeth they pass between the threads of 
the warp.” This is exactly the way in which the tapestry workers 
of the Gobelins go to work. Like them, also, the two rivals work 
in shades melting from one colour to another, mixing “threads of 
gold with prepared worsted of Tyre.” They also stack personi- 
fied scenes: austere Pallas chooses for her subject the deplorable 
fate of human beings who venture to compete with gods; while 
the imprudent Arachne represents the gallantries of Olympus. At 
last they both surround their picture with a border; the one with a 
wreath of flowers intertwined with ivy-leaves, and the ‘lien with olive- 
branches. 3 

A clever traveller named Jean Lagrange writes: “The carpets of 
Smyrna and Caramania are woven by women’s hands. When a child is 
old enough to hold a shuttle, she is given worsted of all colours; and 
between two trees are stretched the cords that are to form the warp. 


A FALCON CHASE, 


(Arras Tapestry at the Castle of Aroué.) Page 368 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS. 369 


Then she is told: ‘Itis for you to make your own dowry. For her 
guides, she has only the innate feeling of the beauty of outline, and ~ 
the sorting of shades, and the tradition and the example of her com- 
panions. The work is slowly continued. Each successive week, month, 
and year, marks the growth both of the work and of the worker. 
When childhood is over and womanhood has set in, the carpet is 
generally completed; and then two masters, two purchasers, present 
themselves ; the one carries off a carpet and the other a wife.” 

The art of tapestry seems in ancient times to have been altogether 
monopolized by the towns of the centre of Asia and of the sea-coast. 
Their produce. was exported into Europe in merchant vessels from 
Tyre, which smuggled it much as Cleopatra smuggled herself into 
Czesar’s presence, rolled up in a carpet and carried on the back of a 
slave. The cataclysms of the Roman Empire must have inflicted a 
fatal blow upon it. Strong armour, horses, and thousands of slaves 
were the luxury of wandering conquerors, and when the’ general 
desolation consequent on their successive invasions was abated, the 
Western world arose, having itself adopted the barbarous manners and 
customs of its conquerors. : 

How and at what period did the art of tapestry make its way into 
France? This is a question which historical critics have failed to 
answer satisfactorily. It was, without doubt, through the Saracens, 
who, after crossing the Pyrenees, reached the very heart of France, 
and probably, too, by Byzantine workmen who had accompanied the 
mosaists under Charlemagne’s predecessors. 

The annals of our central towns, those of the north and north-east, 
testify at least, since the middle of the ninth century, to the existence 
of high-warp (haute-lisse) looms. A charter mentions that a Bishop of 
Auxerre, whose death occurred in 840, “ordered some carpets for his 
church ;” towards the year 890, we find that the monks ot the Abbey 
of Saumur manufactured some themselves ; thus also with regard to 
Poietiers, Rheims, Troyes, Beauvais, Aubusson, Valenciennes, Tours, 
and Arras. But as early as the fifteenth century, the carpets and 
tapestries of Arras were pre-eminent. ‘The Italians themselves, who 
admire them, have adopted the term “ Arazzi” to designate historical 
tapestries. Nevertheless this superiority of French industry was 
slow in manifesting itself, for, in 1260, the produce of the looms of 
the “makers of Sarrazin carpets” belonged only to the Church, the 

2B 


370 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


nobility, and the King. On the other hand, the “ tapis nostrez,” 
which in all probability were purely national, both in make and ap- 
pearance, were the property of the gentry and middle class. 

It matters little how the loom and the secrets of dyeing the wool 
were imported and taught. The fact which most strikes one is the 
sentiment of general harmony with which this French middle age, 
much abused when compared with the Italian Renaissance, took 
possession of tapestry for decorative purposes. In the church it was 
a softer echo of stained glass. When suspended to walls and columns 
on the occasion of State festivals, it endowed their time-faded pictures 
and paintings with an extraordinary degree of brilliancy. It instructed 
the ignorant poor in the historical episodes of the New’as well as the 
Old Testament. René d’Anjou bequeathed to the “ Church of Mon- 
sieur St. Maurice d’Angers” (in 1461) his tapestry of the Apocalypse, 
comprising seventy-five subjects, on an alternately red and blue 
ground ; they are still the chief ornament of that cathedral. 

In feudal castles tapestry formed, as it were, a new page in a large 
book of miniatures, translations for those who could not read, the 
“histories” or legends, then popular, suggesting well-known hunts 
and festivities, recounting celebrated tournaments or famous battles, 
giving grave lessons too in morality and propriety. A series of 
Valenciennes tapestries describes in three chapters, with clear and 
touching simplicity, the incidents of a falcon chase. The museum of 
Cluny exhibits the “ Bataille de Jarnac” and the “Bataille de St. 
Denis,” done from life (portraites aw naturel); at Orleans may be 
seen the triumphant entry of Jeanne d’Are. 

In the salle des cerfs of the ducal palace of Nancy is preserved a 
specimen of high-warp tapestry, composed of seven pieces, in worsted. 
and silk, originally brought away, it is said, from the tent of ‘‘ Charles 
le Téméraire ” at the battle of Nancy (January 5th, 1477). 

Besides the feeling of national pride which attaches to it, it is 
curious on account of its subject, the Condamnacion de Sowper et de 
Banquet. It is a whole story in itself, whose allegorical basis is in- 
tended to expose the snares and drawbacks of good living. The 
names of the personages present, which also indicate their mission, 
are written in Gothic letters and inscriptions. These are: Diner, 
Souper, Banquet ; also Bonne-Compagnie, Passe Temps, Gourman- 
dise, Friandise, Je Boy-a-Vous, &e. &e. Then comes_a Fool, with 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS. 371 


his bauble and the acolytes of the banquet: Apopleaie, Plewrésie, 
Colique, and dame Mapérience, who, after a violent contest, arrives - 
foilowed by Remede, Diete, Prllule, &c. It is a complete “illustrated 
work,” and these shrewd and witty illustrations make us almost funcy 
that we are sitting at the table of some rich gourmet of 1450; there 
are two peacocks, each having a sort of shield, destined to bear the 
amphitryon’s coat of arms, suspended to their neck; a sow tatooed ; 
a vessel full of birds, plying on a sea full of fish, hurried on by means 
of a sail of silk and ermine, and having for its flag a representation of 
Venus; coloured wax-lights illumine the table-cloth, and light up a 
magnificent dressoir filled with rich and costly plate, while musicians 
are cheering the company. 

Let us here remark, as a trait which should not be overlooked with 
regard to the morality of these pictures, that, as the Duc Charles le 
Téméraire was, in the midst of his sensual court, noted for his sobriety 
and moderation, this piece of tapestry of the “ Condamnacion de Souper 
et de Banquet,” no doubt {os some sharp but hidden and epi- 
grammatic meaning. 

Tapestry, up to the end a the fifteenth century, satisfied the soberest 
principle of decoration. This it accomplished by the juxtaposition of 
flat tones; by very sharply defined expressions of countenance in the 
figures wrought, and by a grave dignity in their attitude and a still 
folding of their draperies: it grouped them, and placed them in a 
high style of perspective, one above the other, in order that the eye 
might easily embrace the general effect of the scene; it simplified, 
as much as possible, the gradations of colour which aerial perspective 
demands; in a word, it avoided as much as possible, either by the 
multiplicity of its colours or by the disposing of its lines, “ making a 
picture,” and isolating itself from the wall, which it hid without pre- 
tending to displace it, and it completed the furniture without appearing 
to overpower it. Tor this reason, however severely time may have 
bitten into them, the tapestries of that period have preserved a sin- 
- gularly harmonious character, and even where the subject is no longer 
discernible, a combination of subtle lines and hues remain, which is 
still remarkably decorative. 

We will refer the reader, who may wish to be further convinced, to 
that magnificent Flemish hanging of the reign of Louis XII., the 
“ History of David and Bathsheba,” at the Museum of the Hotel 

2B 2 


372 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


Cluny, and which covers the sides of the large square salon on the 
ground-floor. Although it was originally made, it is believed, for the 
Court of France, it has successively belonged to the Duke of York, 
to the Marquis Spinola, and to the family of the Serras of Genoa. 
Indeed, the principles of that period were of a broader sort, at least 
those of the French, and especiaily the German and Flemish painters. 
The religious compositions of Lucas von Leyden, for instance, might 
undergo without risk the transition from the panel to the loom. A 
tapestry after Van Eyck has recently been discovered at Rome in the 
possession of a private family, and it has been restored with the most 
scrupulous care. Mons. Alfred Michiels has described it minutely 
in his conscientious work, the “ History of Flemish Painting” (“ His- 
toire de la Peinture Flamande”’). It is rich in silver cord and silk. 
There is the Virgin Mary with her Divine Son on her knees, 
while nine angels are adoring Him and praising Him, together with 
four shepherds, the donor, and a distant view of his native town, &c. — 
Italian art, though not that of the earliest years, effected a change 
in all this. Nothing short of the genius of Raphael and the respect 
which attaches to his works, can reconcile us to accepting without. 
protest the revolution he effected in designs for tapestry. Were not 
the arabesques he composed with so sweet a revival of antique taste 
about them sufficient ? and what was the necessity for transforming 
tapestry into a sort of shallow fresco? We know that Raphael was 
commissioned by Leo X. to complete, by a series of ten designs for 
tapestry, the Sistine Chapel, of which Michael Angelo had decorated 
the dome. ‘These designs, ten in number, were carried out at Arras 
in a tissue of silk, yarn, and gold. ‘They reached Rome in 1519, only 
a few months before the death of the great master who had composed 
them. There they excited universal enthusiasm; and Vasari declares 
“that they seemed to be rather the work of a miracle than that of 
men’s hands.” Raphael had selected his subjects from the Acts of the 
Apostles, to which, however, he added the “ Coronation of the Virgin ” 
for the altar-piece, which occupies the farther end of the chapel. 
England now possesses seven of these cartoons. They have, how- 
ever, been wetted and faded; perforated, too, by the needle of the 
copier, carelessly stuck to a coarse common paper, and, worse than 
all, they have been touched up with an indifference, or a pretension, 
which is positively harrowing; nevertheless, they show, like those 


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7 


THE HISTORY OF DAVID AND BATHSHERA, 
(Flemish Tapestry of the reign of Louis XII. At the Museum des Thermes et de ’ Hotel Cluny.) 


Page 372, 


‘* 
~ 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS. 373 


_. fragments of an antique torso, which time has not altogether obliterated, 
the wise and powerful touch of a great master and decorator. Rubens 
discovered them lying rotting in a wooden box, and cut up in narrow 
strips for the greater convenience of the tapestry-workers who copied 
them. In 1630 he prevailed upon King Charles I. to purchase them, 
and he caused them to be placed in Whitehall. Later on Cromwell 
persuaded the State to buy them for the sum of three hundred pounds, 
and after other misadventures too lengthy here to recount, they were 
put up inone of the rooms in Hampton Court Palace. They are now 
to be seen in London at the South Kensington Museum, to which the 
Queen has graciously lent then. Some very fine photographs of them 
were taken a few years ago by order of Prince Albert. 

Tapestries from these cartoons were exhibited in the year VIII.— 
this fact is but little generally known—at Paris, in the Court of the 
Palais National des Sciences et Arts, that is to say, in the Court of the 
Louvre, in conformity with the first article of the anniversary féte of 
the foundation of the Republic. They had then first arrived from 
Italy. The government officers at Rome had purchased them for 
. France at the sale of the Pope’s household furniture and effects. To 
these were added some of the finest produce of the Gobelins, from 
designs by Jouvenet, Restout, Le Brun, and Coypel. We do not 
know whether they still form part of the Crown furniture and effects, 
or whether, notwithstanding their having been purchased, they were 
returned to the Allies at the fall of the ’irst Empire. 

We have at the present moment in Paris, in the rooms devoted to 
designs and drawings of the Italian school, four large cartoons for 
tapestry, by Giulio Romano. If they be inferior to those of Hampton 
Court as to their conception and execution, they are, at any rate, 
worthy of forming a point of comparison with them. They are painted 
in distemper: one of them, the “Triumphal March,” is taken from 
a “History of Scipio” which belongs to the Cavagnac family, and 
was recently exhibited at the private gallery of the club of the 
Rue de Choiseul. The three others, the “ Prisoners,” the “ Stormed 
City,” and the “Triumph,” form part of the “Fruits de la Guerre,” 
bitter fruits of which humanity is not yet tired. .... The “great 
tapestry of Scipio,’ made in France towards the year 1534, and com- 
posed of silk and worsted heightened with gold, obtained for a long time 
the admiration of strangers ; it was still in existence in the catalogues 


374 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


of the Crown, in the middle . the seventeenth century. Since then ._ 
it has disappeared. Happily the “small tapestry of Scipio” still 
exists. It consists of ten pieces, in lengths of seven ells. The hang- 
ing which represents the “ Fruits de la Guerre” was copied at the 
Gobelins in the reign of Louis XIV. . 

In his “ History of English Painters,’ Mr. A. Cunningham relates 
how these four splendid cartoons of Giulio Romano re-entered France, 
after having been sold, doubtless as rubbish, by the tapestry-workers, 
when they had done with them. 

The miniature painter, Richard Cosway, a great amateur of draw- 
ings and curiosities, was one day visiting the Louvre with his wife. 
He was surprised to see the bare and naked appearance of the walls, 
and said, ‘‘ Maria, my cartoons would look well here, and, to say the 
truth, they are almost a necessity.” He greatly esteemed them, and 
had refused a considerable sum offered him for them by Russia. 
Notwithstanding this he offered them to the King in 1785, who 
accepted them, and graciously sent him in return a complete collection 
of Chaleographic engravings, together with four handsome pieces of 
Gobelins tapestry representing the “ Adventures of Don Quixote” after 
Coypel, which were valued at 14,210 francs. ‘These Richard Cosway 
generously presented to the Prince of Wales. 

At the commencement of the seventeenth century Flemish tapestries 
in the Italian style were still in great favour. Monsieur Armand 
Baschet, an erudite lover of art, has published the correspondence 
between Guido Bentivoglio, the nuncio at Flanders in 1607, and 
Cardinal Borghése, on the subject of a purchase of tapestry, which, in 
the opinion of these impatient amateurs, was not settled with sufficient 
promptitude. } 

Had it been a question of annexing a new province to the Papal 
States, or of obtaining the admittance of miscreant souls into heaven, 
they could not have written more frequently, more anxiously, or 
more pressingly! Bentivoglio had just purchased for the Cardinal 
Montalto a tapestry originally made for King Philip IL, from the 
designs of “a valiant painter,” when the letter of his “illustrious 
lordship ” arrives, requesting him to lose no time about this matter. 
He expounds his “ project” for another tapestry hanging, which is 
about to be carried out at’ the same Spey -makers, representing the 
“History of Samson.” 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS, 375 


“Tt was designed,” he writes, “by order of Henry II., King of 
France; but by reason of his death and the kingdom’s troubles, the _ 
work was never begun. The painter was from Malines. Though 
born in France, he spent many long years in Italy, where, by imitating 
the valiant artists of that time, he acquired a high reputation. This 
design is of singular beauty, and betrays great. power of invention; it 
is full of very large figures endowed with an extraordinary majesty.” 
The whole of this “ History of Samson” consisted of twelve pieces, all 
about five ells in height, without the border. What a grand effect 
must these “histories” have produced on the walls of the Italian 
palaces of the seventeenth century, so pompous and rich, and yet so 
stately ! 

But to return to our prelates. Later on, Bentivoglio offers the cardinal 

in Italy “a hanging in six pieces, suitable for one whole room. They 
represent different gardens in perspective of an effect most elegant and 
gracious.” 
_ These are very like what are still known under the name of “des 
verdures,’ which are made at Beauvais. Later still, in 1617, when 
made nuncio to France, he discovers new ones... . . “The colours 
of these are of the brightest, enriched with a good deal of gold; the 
border is especially beautiful, as much from its singularity as from its 
richness of design, for it is almost entirely of gold. All the figures 
are life-size, and represent the ‘Fables of Diana.’ Their actual 
possessor asks sixteen thousand ‘scudi’ for them, and protests that he 
has refused twelve thousand.” 

What, again, has befallen this series of the “ Fables of Diana?” No 
one knows. But this border, “almost entirely of gold,” would suggest 
the possibility of their having been burnt for the sake of their ashes. 
Rather this, than that they should have fallen the prey to rats’ teeth 
or to the ragman’s back! 

In truth, these were the last flourishing days of tapestry. In halls 
and state rooms, the dimensions of which were already growing 
smaller, it began to make way for the less costly stamped leather. 
The taste for this style of decoration was passing from the aristocracy 
and higher class to the lower middle class. Thus it is that in the 
«Amour Médecin,” when Sganarelle asks his friends and neighbours 
to suggest a remedy that will cheer his daughter Lucinda, Monsieur 
Guillaume says: “If I were in your place I would buy a fine hanging 


376 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


of tapestry ‘de verdure,’ or with figures, and I would suspend it in 
her room, to enliven her mind and raise her spirits.” We know that 
Moliére was very fond of that style of decoration, for several “ verdures ” 
figured in the catalogue of his effects after his death. 

A rapid glance at the history of the Gobelins manufactory will 
bring us on to our time. 

The first of the Gobelins, who established himself at Paris, was 
called Jean, and came, it is said, from Rheims; this was towards the 
end of the fifteenth century. He prospered rapidly, and his son 
Philibert bought a great deal of land on the narrow banks of the 
Biévre, the then abundant and limpid little river to which Rabelais, 
in his Pantagruel, assigns so amusing an origin, and which has now 
become an insignificant and almost stagnant stream. Its waters were 
in those. days supposed to possess particular virtues for the dyeing of 
yarn; probably the chief virtue actually lay in the ability of the 
workmen’s hands; in any case, the colours are now as brilliant and as 
fast as ever, athens they have only been dipped in the waters of ne 
Seine or in that of some deep well. 

By that time the Gobelins had made an enormous fortune; one of 
them, Antoine by name, became the Marquis of Brinyilliers ; i wife 
was the famous poisoner who decimated the court and the ae alike. 
Later on they handed over their establishment to the brothers Cannaye, 
who occupied the opposite side of the river. These imported from 
Flanders workmen who worked the high-warp loom under the 
direction of a man named Jean. Still later, when Colbert purchased 
the Hotel des Gobelins, properly so called on behalf of the King, it 
belonged to a counsellor of State named Deleu; but the adjacent 
buildings continued to form a manufactory for dyeing and making 
tapestry, under the direction of a man named Glick, a native of 
Holland. 

It was Francis I. who, to meet the immense demand for the orna- 
mentation of his royal palaces, first thought of uniting in one centre 
the fabrication of those tapestries which were carried out after the 
designs of decorators brought by him, or sent for, from Italy. 
This centre he established at Fontainebleau, under the direction of 
Philibert Rabou, superintendent of his buildings, and of the architect 
Sébastien Serlio. 

Under Henry II. Philibert Delorme took the direction of the royal 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS. 377 


factory, another of which was established in the “ Hopital de la Trinité,” 
in the Rue Saint-Denis at Paris. Henri Lerambert furnished it, as well . 
as the manufactory of Tours, with designs, 

Henry LYV., notwithstanding the persistent opposition of Sully, who 
would fain have had France concentrate its forces solely for the 
advancement of agriculture and industry, protected the art of the 
tapestry-worker regally. He summoned to him some of the cleverest 
Flemish hands, and when the Hopital de la Trinité in the Faubourg 
Saint-Antoine was vacated by the expulsion of the Jesuits, the mann- 
factory was removed to it, and thence to the Palais des Tournelles, 
thence to the Place Royale, and to the galleries of the Louvre, and 
lastly it settled down at the Gobelins in 1630, under the direction of 
Messrs. Raphael de la Planche and Charles de Comans. 

In 1662 Louis XIV. and Colbert united in this establishment, which 
since that time has scarcely altered its physiognomy, all industrial 
centres working exclusively for the King: tapestry, dyeing, embroidery, 
jewellery, foundery, engraving, cabinet-making, &c., &. In 1663 
Charles Le Brun was placed at the head of this huge establishment, 
in whose hands it made rapid strides. 

These fine tapestries, which were made from his “ Histoire d’Alex- 
andre le Grand,” and from the battles and sieges of Van der Meulen, 
are well known; also the rich framework of flowers and fruits with 
which Baptiste Monnoyer surrounded them. The apartments at 
Versailles and Fontainebleau still retain some splendid specimens 
of the magnificence of the “Sun King.” At the Elysée there is 
the strangest copy of Raphael’s “Judgment of Paris.” The god- 
desses are draped & la Montespan, while Paris is capped with a wig 
ala Louis XIV. Nevertheless, these were always pictures copied as 
literally as possible, and, as it were, frescoes in worsted. The finest of 
the series is that of the “ Four Quarters of the Globe,” taken from 
models of animals, fruits, and plants, by Desportes. 

_ Jean Berain, an able designer, and later on Claude Gillot, the 
master of Watteau, brought tapestry back to surer principles, for a 
time at least. ‘Those compositions in which monkeys are gamboling 
in the midst of intertwisted boughs, where the Seasons are seated on 
chimeric and impossible thrones superintending grotesque combats, 
have many a time given pleasure to French taste, which always 
demands a clear subject, and which has an intelligent appropriation 


378 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


of the Oriental tradition, and that is to entice and fix the eye with a 
pleasant interlacing of lines. 

Boucher (who was at one time at the head of the Gobelins) and his 
pupils successively painted for that manufactory as well as those of 
Beauvais and the Savonnerie, pastoral scenes so brilliant and so fresh, 
and yet simple, as never to have been surpassed. But, by a manifest 
error of tastes, they made shepherds walking straight down the wall, 
after sheep decorated with lilac favours, or else thus engaged they 
were made to recline on the horizontal seats of sofas and chairs, so 
that—and indeed it is still too often the case in our day—one is 
made to sit on a pigeon house, or step into the wavy waters of a 
seaport. 

It was error sufficient to copy too literally the figures of persons or 
trees, upon a surface which a gust of wind would debit or one fold 
sever in two ; in this, however, there is a conventionality to which the 
mind, with a slight stretch of imagination, gets easily accustomed ; 
but how great a mistake it was, to sprinkle the ground with ready- 
made bouquets, or with panoplies! One finds oneself at every moment, 
when walking on these large Savonnerie and Aubusson carpets, on the 
point of thrusting one’s feet against a roll of leather, or crushing a 
basket full of cherries. . 

The signature of Andran or Cozette, which one so often remarks 
on some of the finer pieces of Gobelins tapestry, designate not the work- 
man, but the contractor or manager. Cozette held that office from 
1736 till 1792. In the catalogue of a very mysterious sale which 
_ took place in 1777, and which was perhaps that of Madame Dubarry, 
I find the following items, which go to prove how much importance 
was attached to the good preservation of fine tapestries: “Two pieces 
of pastoral subjects, in tapestry, by Cozette des Gobelins, after Francois 
Boucher. They are glazed, the size of each glass being seventy 
inches wide, and forty-eight inches high.” 

Now-a-days the manufactories of the Gobelins and of Beauvais, 
which, after being divided, have returned to one direction, have given 
up copying pictures made entirely with a view to being pictures— 
such, for instance, as the “ Massacre of the Mamelukes,” by Horace 
Vernet, or the “ Holy Family” of Raphael. Artists are required to 
draw special models, of which the composition is simple and the draw- 
ing clear. In so doing a great economy of time is gained, and con- 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS. 379 


sequently of money, to say nothing of an infinitely more satisfactory 
result. ‘The effect produced does not lie in the multiplicity of colours, - 
but in their intrinsically good quality, and especially in their correct 
juxtaposition. The most distinguished decorator which the manu- 


SHEPHERDS AND SHEPHERDESSES. GOBELINS TAPESTRY AFTER BOUCHER’S DESIGN, 


(Mons. L. Double’s collection.) 


factory has yet possessed is Monsieur Chabal-Dussurgey, of Lyons ; he 
was a man of great intelligence and rare artistic merit. He only 
painted flowers and ornaments, but these he did with incomparable 
correctness and simplicity. 


380 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


The Persian carpet here engraved, and which belongs to Monsieur 
de Saint-Seine, is one of the finest samples of splendour and Oriental 
fabrication, of a period which answers to that of the French Renais- 
sance. It is supposed to have come from the harem of Constantinople. 
It is like a page, woven in silk, out of those Persian manuscripts, the 
characters of which are in themselves of the most subtle and ingenious — 
design, and as harmonious and warm as a Venetian picture. ‘The 
dominating colour throughout is a brilliant yellow, deep and intense 
_as the inside of a ripe apricot. Where the light catches it, it glitters 
like a lake under the rays of the setting sun; while in the shaded” 
parts it has a depth which is only comparable to the shadow of a 
nugget of gold. It contains about twenty different colours, so clear 
and distinct that they are easily counted—yellow, black, white, two 
or three different blues, two or three reds, greens, and greys. _ 

This is the style in which, in our day, orders should have been 
given to the first artists of our generation, and especially to colourists. 
The price of the work would certainly not attain that of the dull and 
tasteless pictures which have come out of that celebrated manufactory, 
and it would set to the manufacturers an example that they would be 
sure to follow. What elegant and brilliant compositions of this sort a 
master like Eugene Delacroix would have furnished us with ! 

The Gobelin tapestries and the carpets of the Sayonnerie are 
worked with a high-warp loom. The warp is generally of worsted, 
and is vertically stretched on two cylinders, technically called in 
French ‘‘ensouples.” The threads running parallel and level with — 
each other are alternately passed over a glass tube of about an inch 
and a half in diameter, called the “ biton d’entre-deux,” or inserting 
pin ; and that which is called “le baton de croisure,’ or crossing-pin, 
so that one half of the threads, relatively to the worker, is in front and 
the other half behind. The waft is rolled upon a wooden shuttle 
which terminates with a point at one end. ‘This they call “ broche,” - 
or spindle. i 

“In order to make the tissue,” writes the late director of the 
Gobelins, Monsieur Lacordaire, in his excellent notes on that establish- 
ment, “the workman takes a spindle filled with worsted or silk, of the 
requisite colour; he stops off the weft thread and fastens it to the 
warp, to the left of the space to be occupied by the colour he has in 
hand, and then, by passing his left hand between the back and the 


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PERSIAN CARPET OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, IN SILK, 


(Collection of the Marquis of Saint-Seine.) Page 380. 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS. 381 


front threads, he separates those that are to be covered with colours ; 
with his right hand, having passed it through the same threads, he 
reaches to the left side for the spindle, which he brings back to the 
right; his left hand then, seizing hold of the warp, brings the back 
threads to the front, while the right hand thrusts the spindle back to 
the point whence it started. This going alternately backwards and 
forwards of the shuttle or spindle, in opposite directions, is called in 
French two ‘ passées,’ or one ‘ duite.’” 

In order to introduce a new shade of colour, the workman takes a 
new shuttle. He cuts his thread, stops it off, and lets the preceding 
shuttle and thread hang from the wrong side of the work, which is 
the side on which he works. At each successive “duite” he collects 
with the pointed end of his shuttle the weft threads of the portion of 
work already completed. This first compression, however, is insuf- 
ficient, and only temporary ; after placing a few of the above “ duites” 
in juxtaposition, one above the other, the operation is completed by 
combing the weft down from the top to the bottom with a large ivory 
comb, the teeth of which fit into the threads of the warp, which are by 
this means all brought to their place and hidden. 

In order to make the outline of any given subject to be represented, 
and to know when to pass from one colour to another, the workman is 
guided by a black line traced on the warp from a transparent paper, 
on which has previously been traced the model to be copied. This 
line is made visible on the nght as well as on the wrong side of the 
warp, so that the artist has it before him all the while he works, 
whether he sits at his post or whether he leaves it to judge of the 
effect from a little distance. ‘This is for the outline. The picture is 
always placed behind him. ; 

The colours, however, are not placed suddenly side by side without 
intermediate tones. ‘The intervals which separate the “duites” irre- 
gularly, in order to avoid a look of iy neeus tee or mosaic pavement 
they would present, are called ‘“ hachures.” 

Unfortunately, but we only speak from an artistic point of view, 
the recent chemical researches, instead of being carried in the direc- 
tion of the brightness and fastness of colours, have been occupied 
chiefly to discover a greater number of them. — 

A chromatic circle has been obtained which consists of several 
thousand semi-tints, that is to say, all the possible gradations of colour 


382 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


which, for example, separate yellow from blue in passing through all 
the varieties of green. 

It was done ant a view to meet the requirements of the painter’s 
palette, which painter, while he creates his picture, is the last to think 
of the dilemmas and puzzles he is inflicting on the tapestry-workers, 
whose business it is to reproduce it in worsted. ‘Towards the year 
1812, however, a head workman had the happy inspiration of re- 
placing the intervals of one shade with intervals of two shades 
combined ; that is to say, to use a double thread of pink and green, 
for instance, to produce a grey tint, and red and blue to form a lilac. 
This plan is now almost the only one adopted. It by no means 
assures the durability of the colour, however, and serves for little else 
than to produce a sort of general harmony, grey and dull, dear to the 
school of David, but eminently calculated to inspire all beholders with 
melancholy. 

This is not the Oriental way of measles ; they understand too. 
clearly that harmony springs, on the contrary, from the apparent con- 
trast between two distinct colours. Mons. Chevreul has clearly de- 
monstrated this in a work on the theory of colour, a summary edition 
of which ought to be ranked in the classical library of all educa- 
tional cntalblicheuande both for girls and boys, 
~ The carpets of the Savonnerie essentially differ, both in method of 
execution and in result, from those of the Gobelins, properly so called. 
The workman sees the right side mstead of the reverse of his work. 
It is a velvet pile, instead of a smooth surface. The loom is of the 
same shape, but of much more considerable dimensions. The worsted 
threads are bound around a sort of cutter (tranche-fil) or iron stick of 
very small diameter, which terminates like the blade of a sharp knife ; 
this occupies a horizontal position on the work, and is used to carry 
in succession a series of uniform small rings of worsted produced by 
the repetition of the stitch; when one cylindrical portion of the 
thread-cutter is covered with these rings, the blade is drawn out in 
order to cut them, and thus to form a double row, light and close, of 
short upstanding bits. These are knit together and kept firmly in 
their position by means of a thread of hemp, which is placed after 
each row, and tightened with an iron comb, They are shorn with 
large scissors an double bent handles, so that they may present a 
perfectly smooth and even surface. In large carpets, that thickness 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS. 383 


which for the sake of an image one might compare to a thatch, is 
about half an inch deep. For those carpets of current use, such as - 
bedside rugs, it is little more than.one eighth of an inch in thickness. 
The delicacy of this last operation may easily be imagined. The 
carpets from Smyrna have in this respect a degree of regularity and 
suppleness which even the Gobelins are far from attaining. 

Real Savonnerie carpets have become extremely rare, for notwith- 
standing their very great solidity of fabrication, it must be remem- 
bered that they are but intended to be trodden under foot. The 
“ Mobilier de la Couronne” possesses some which date as far back as 
the first years of the Savonnerie. 

The imperial manufactory of the Gobelins is one of the institutions 
which represents so beautiful and interesting a period of the past, 
that, notwithstanding its only relative usefulness, it is entitled to honour 
and respect. Its produce is a produce of the State. “Louis XIV. 
sent out to the King of Siam, to the Czar of Russia, and the King of 
Prussia, carpets and hangings of great value. In 1855, France pre- 
sented the “‘ Massacre of the Mamelukes,’ which had cost about forty 
thousand francs, to the Queen of England. In olden days, too, noble- 
men could give orders for tapestries such as modern fortunes can no 
longer afford. ‘The State, therefore, in order to .give occupation to 
those artists whose studies produce masterpieces, appropriates all its 
production either for the furniture of palaces, or for wall decoration. 
One chance still remains for this manufactory, that of placing itself in 
connection with the requirements of the public; it must renounce all 
literal reproductions of pictures, and, following the example of Beau- 
vais, which is still under one and the same management, devote itself 
to purely decorative subjects. It would be well, too, if its productions 
were given a place in the yearly exhibition of pictures, as was done 
indeed until within a few years of this time. In 1835, and in 1838, 
at the picture exhibition, the public had an opportunity of admiring, 
and with justice, the Gobelins tapestries after Rubens, which Louis 
Philippe later on caused to be placed in the long gallery of the Palais 
de Saint Cloud. 

Subject, in its turn, to those laws of mechanical advance towards 
perfection which has transformed nearly all modern branches of 
industry, the imperial manufactory of the Gobelins will, of necessity, 
have to simplify the style of its looms, for assuredly carpets and wall 


384 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART. 


hangings, trodden under foot, or suspended on furniture for daily use, 
meet the demands of a kind of luxury and comfort which have alike 
become indispensable. ‘The dull colour which absorbs the light is 
useful in setting off the quality of material and the softer tones of 
flesh. We frequently mect with pieces of tapestry, faded, it is true, 
by long exposure to light and air, in the studies of painters, whose 
eyes are keenly impressionable. Painted paper is but a coarse fac- 
simile of them. ee et ele 
The. average prices of the Gobelins are almost unapproachable. 
The City of Paris has lately given, to the private manufactory of 
Sallandrouze, at Aubusson, an order for a complete series of decora- 
tions for the Salle du Tréne of the Hotel de Ville. 3 
There still remains to be seen what the tapestry of the future is to 
be. Both in France and in England a thousand fruitless attempts 
are being made to arrive at extreme cheapness, but these have resulted 
only in extreme absurdity ; for instance, the plan of gumming felt on 
to calico! The solution will probably be the- substitution of the 
Jacquart loom, or some analogous combination, to the high and low 
warp looms. This ingenious method produces a stuff, a kind of reps 
rather than anything else, but the appearance is the same, and the 
material itself is infinitely stronger. A carpet of worsted is woven as 
if it were a piece of woven silk. A manufactory, which, for some 
years has been established at Neuilly, has greatly distinguished itself 
at recent exhibitions. The principal economy obtained rests in the 
fact that when once a given subject is mounted it may be reproduced . 
over and over again, whereas at the Gobelins each piece is an inde- 
pendent work, and unique in its way. In.the Neuilly tapestry, which, 
as we have already said, is a literal application of the Jacquart loom, 
the model mounted and set as if for a French shawl or for a piece of 
figured stuff, as it were, writes itself out under the hand of the worker, 
after traversing the cylindrical holes of more than several thousand 
sheets of pasteboard, a combination which is at once very simple and 
very complicated. The chief outlay on the part of the maker rests 
in the first arrangement of these pasteboards, which may, in a com- 
plicated pattern, attain and even exceed the sum of ten thousand 
francs. But this first groundwork gradually decreases in value, in the 
process of reproduction, so that the tenth reproduction will only be 
worth one thousand francs, and so on. Itis a democratic and social loom. 


THE HARE AND THE PARTRIDGE, 


(Specimen of the Tapestry of Neuilly ) 
Page 384. 


i aay, 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS. 385 


This enables that influential entity called society, generally to order 
the covering of a whole suite of furniture for a sum equivalent to what, 
in the seventeenth century, the Duke of Northumberland or the Prince 
de Condé must have paid for one sofa or about six chair-covers. So it 
is that in the year 1862 France produced fifteen millions of francs’ 
worth of carpets. Smyrna exports double that amount in value, and 
England, where domestic houses are so comfortable, fifteen millions 
also, importing the same amount. 

Here must terminate our notes on tapestry, which has shared the ~ 
fate common to all humanity, and succumbed under the fatal law of 
successive substitutions. It succeeded to mural painting, and to 
mosaic ornamentation, and was supplanted in its turn by gilt leather, 
and painted wood, and lastly painted paper supervened. Tver since 
the day when man forfeited the liberty of his natural state he has 
been untiringly seeking to disguise the walls of his prison-house with 
representations of the splendours of a palace, or the freshness of a 
landscape. 

Let us devote one or two lines to the subject of tapestry worked by 
hand with a needle, and to those Italian books; printed for the most 
part at Venice in the course of the sixteenth century, containing 
patterns for embroidery, lace, transferring, point-lace, hand worsted- 
work, &c. &c. The combinations they present are always in the best 
of taste, and are generally easy of execution. ‘These volumes, which 
are much in requisition and esteem with great amateurs, have become 
exceedingly rare, like everything that has passed from the hands of 
children and women to those of artists. Their titles were in the 
elaborate and mannered style which was fashionable in the Italian 
literature of that period : “La Fontaine des Exemples,” “La Gloire de 
Minerve,” “Le Jardin des Modeles,” “Le Triomphe de Vertu,” “Le 
Festin des Belles Dames,” &c. &. It is the desire of being useful 
to some one of our fair readers which has induced us'to give the accom- 
panying illustration; if we broached the subject of hand tapestry 
we must needs have mentioned the Bayeux tapestry, and called it 
“Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde,” but such is not our intention. 

The tapestry worked by stitches with a needle, forms a part of 
embroidered, and not of woven, produce. The most celebrated and 
best Italian or German painters have not disdained to furnish patterns 
for it. Some of these are extant, both by Leonardo da Vinci, and 

| 20 


386 MASTERPIECES OF INDUSTRIAL ART, 


Albert Diirer. The Florentine Raffaelmo del Garbo (1466—1524), 
pupil, friend, and fellow-worker of Filippino Lippi, made a number of 
designs for the Rcamatori, those able embroiderers who, by mixing 
gold thread with silk, produced such gorgeous altar-cloths and sacer- 
dotal vestments. | 

Lastly, we meet with a gentle and fascinating face wherewith to 
close these pages; it is that of Rosalba Carriera, who, before she 
became a celebrated artist in chalks, was an embroiderer of needle- 
work at Venice, with her sisters. Our fair readers may be encouraged 
by it. 


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INDEX. 


CERAMIC ART, PROGRESS OF, Erc.—pp. 3 To 6. 


TERRA COTTA—pp. 9 To 18. 


Ba PAGE 
ectiene: PiwZe*.. 3... 6... 12 
SAO ONRPaPEe yee cc uke se CL 
Cyrenaic Statucttes .. .. .. .. 13 
Debutades, Potter Si 9,10 
18 le) 0 er 1 
Houdon .. Pemerie e T 
Jerome Benivieni op fe ae 1G 
Mahabharata, a Sanscrit Poem ye 


PAGE 

Medallions at Hampton Court... .. 16 

: in Hotel of Scipio Sardini 16 

Ornament of a Roman House... .. 13 
Pajou .. Lien 

Process of Moulding, invented d by a 
Greek Potter .. .. 10 
Satiavan .. ins side 


Statuette of Florentine Singer... 15, 16 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE—pp. 21 ro 127. 


Alhambra Vase . ; .. 42,44 
Antique Numismatic Art. Sto Gg 
Ancient Tiles a1,.32 


« Art du Potier, ” ‘by Cyprian Picool- 


passo ~ 54 
Azulejos.. cacy. Sn eee am 
Basin with Cover Mah Das. oo 
Denote a ee ee es. «| «88 
Bernard Palissy .. ; 68, 96 
Charpentier, Francis.. |... gar oe 
Cornucopia Style of Decoration 107 
Cornucopia Plate 107 
Cumean Vase... <: eer) 
Deck, The Brothers . 116 


Design for a Grotto, = Bernard 


Palaage-s. 4 ee 89 
Devers, Joseph . 50, 51 
ei oo oe peat LAG 
Dinner Service of Henry Peon.) 84 

Yutch Faience .. pete 3 LU 

Jish decorated with Blue + 109 


Earthenware J ug, from Briot’s design 93 
Enamelled Square. taken from the 


Castle of the Dukes of Nevers .. 99 | 
Etruscan Vase .... oC pa eae 
Waciory oc Deruta ..- .. .. .. 66 

Fst Rubelles .. . 120 
Ferrara Ware af : 56, 57 
Fillon, Benjamin — 36 | 


Flagon, by Maestro Giorgio Andreoli 65 


_ Fragments of Roman Pottery.. .. 29 
Francesco Xanto Avelli da Rovigo.. 63 
Gerhard, Edouard .. . Semi th Op 
Giambattista Passeri, of Pesaro a Os 
CTWOUMMORE os. Hi act ds eee hoe BO 
Glacure .. ieee ae 
Goblet, with natural ‘leaves gee 
Gouffier, NV VAIN ara es ers a 86 
Helen of SLOP Oak pean he we aE 
Hispano-Moorish Dish .. .. .. 41 
Hispano-Moorish Vase .. .. .. 48 
Hydria : 27, 28 
Italian Majolicas sea og eS ee ae 
Lebrun, Madame: "= 2.2 fo. i BA 
Lenormant, Charles . ae, 26 
List of Placea where Manutactories 

existed .. Efe UR Caras eee Se 
Luca della Robbia 44,50 
Marseilles Ware.. se LD 
Moustiers Ware . om tote wore LS 
Nevers Ware... aka > Cereteee 
Nicosthenes, Vase of... Nee. 2G 
Oiron Pottery a Ee Sg Shona | 
Oriental Porcelain .. Mee BG 
Palissy Dish called “ Charity” oO 
Palissy, Death of .. ee ce ae 
PGhaey PUM ees a OT 
Panathenaic Amphore .. .. .. 27 
Painting on Lava Eee eZ 
Persian Pottery.. L135 


388 


INDEX. 


ENAMELLED FAIENCE (Continued). 


PAGE 


Persian Porcelain oe Rs 
Pipe Clay .. leo 
Rouen Ware .. Ry od es 
Soup Tureen, Bretagne Ware - .. 111 
Stone Ware ee a pho atk ony 
Superiority of Eastern Ware . 112. | 
Tesselated Pavement “80- 34 


PAGE 
The Nurse . na yo eee 
Vase in Iran “Porostate 62 4k8 
Vases and Jugs in Stone Ware 126 


Vase for holding Holy Water wae 
Works and Factories of Minton... 
Wytte, Baron de Pr re oe 
Ziegler ws” see, ig ala eee 


PORCELAIN—pp. 131 ro 173. 


Adam, Charles .. 
Album Paintings of the Chinese and 
Japanese . 144 


156 


Arms of the Flas of ‘Medici. . 150 
Basin and helmet-shaped Ewer. 147 
Bottger, John Frederick 151 


Colours that can be subjected to a 


high degree of heat 170 Barry trae . 163 
Date of the invention of Porcelain... 131 Porcelain God is Ph PES bt 
Decorations, divided into groups or Properties of Porcelain 132 

families... 2... .. os -«s s« cd&0 7) Rigger dyased eee 141 
Dish with Herons .. 142 | Royal Collection of Sevres. 162 
Diversity of Origin .. 145 | Sevres Porcelain, Decline of . 162 
Double’s Collection of Sévres Porce- Sevres Potteries erected .. .. .. 156 

lain... .. « « « «- .. 161 | Sign-marks of Chinese Porcelam -. 159 
Ebelmen, M. . 164 . German and French 
Fontenoy V ORO ws, eg 160 Potteries ..  .. 155 
French imitations of Chinese Porce- he Saxony . 153,154 

lain .. 145 33 Sevres .. 156, 157,158 
Furnace of great heat during tI the In- a Medici Porcelain .. 151 

casing Process... 170 | Solon, M ee iy | 
Genius of the Chinese ', 136 | Stand of a Chinese Vase of carved 
Goncourt, M. M. de.. ae ee ane Woods 2. sa a ees Le 
Hertford’s, Marquis of, collection of _&t. Cloud Pottery ae ao 104 

Sevres . .. 162 | Superiority of Chinese Potters . 134 
Imitations of Chinese Porcelain 5 139 re Sevres Porcelain 159 
Indian Porcelain... .. 146 Turgan, M., on Sevres... 171 
Inkstand of Marie Antoinette.. ... 161 Urn, Cup, and Water-bottle 140 
Jade... os ve es ue ns ABD | Veale of Porcelain ene 
Kandler 2. 4.) us dasa wk eed Bi 165 

TABLE GLASS—pp. 177 to 198. 

Arabic Lamps .. 180 | Imitation of Precious Stones . 192 
Baccarat .. 195 | Invention of Glass 177 
Ballerini % .. 186 | Mirrors ; 187 
Beads |. og .. 188 | Modern Glass-making 198 | 
Cellini .. .. 192 | Murano Glass ‘ 184 
Chosroes Cup, The , 193 1 Neda on : 193 
Crystal Glass .. 193 | Persian Bottles .. 182 
Decanter, History of a .. 196 | Portland Vase .. 178 
Gallo-Roman Glass .. .. 179 | Réne Francois <3, eee 185 
House of Wine .. .. 182 | Vidrecomes, German: ..° .. 188 
Hydrofluoric Acid . 189 


Kaolin, discovered in Saxony .. 152 
¥ se at St. Yrieux 158 
» Manipulation of . 168 
Louis X Vile 165 
Medici imitations 149 
Oriental Porcelain 148 © 


Plate, with initials of M Madame du 


INDEX. 389 
WINDOW GLASS: STAINED, PAINTED, AND 
PLAIN—pp. 201 ro 218. 
PAGE PAGE 
Delacroix, Extract from .. . 212-214 | Maréchal of Metz ke 
Fontainebleau School . 208 


Glass, Restoration of Window .. is 201 


a Sane On > . .. 204 

“ Window, of the Fourteenth 
Century... 206 

» French Window, of the Six- 
teenth Century . . 209 


Revival of Window Glass 3 in France 201 


ENAMELS—pp. 221 ro 248. 


Adoration of the Shepherds, Enamel 


of the... .. 236 
Betrothal Cup of Mary Queen of 

Beats >.» lon 
Bracelet, Egyptian enamelled.. .. 222 
Byzantines, Cloisonné of the .. .. 226 
Cements, Varnished . . 244 
Court, Jean baa tinal moe 
Enamel, Champlevé.. . 221-227 


ane e UNO Es <5 ss 221 
; Decadence of ee | 234 
rie. oF the word’... .. 221 
»  Painter’s eye cs LO 
mA Petitot’s 
Enamelling, Process of 


cee | 
. 238 


Raven-Head hash apf 
Steinheil eos 
St. Gobain . ae ose ee ee 
Swiss Window Panes .. pa akg nar epg aN 
Enamels, Porcelain .. . 243 
Etruscan War-rings .. -.. ... .. 223 
Limosin, Léonard. a Pa 14) 
Mirror Case of Enamelled | Crystal . . 242 
Nardon Pénicaud ws o 200 
Petitot, Jean .. fod tiene 
Photography applied to Enamel ., 245 
Polyphilus, The Dream of . 248 
Popelin, Claudius es Ti 


Profile of Henry II. Ou oe SORE 


BRONZE AND IRON—pp. 251 To 297. 


Ancient Tiles - -- 290 
Antique Vase of Chinese Bronze .. 268 
Art of the Blacksmith ae eg 
Art of Casting vem te 
Baltard, Victor .. Eee OT 
RTO, ME emmatdy iat foe ise TL 
Biscornette . 283 


Blacksmith’s Shop it in the Fifteenth 


Century ‘ 282 
Bonhomme, Frangois . 281 
Bronzes 2.268 
Bust of Brunacci. oe ae 
Caffieri, Philippe .. euro 
Candlestick of Copper Gilt . 276 

in Italian Bronze... .. 272 
< Charity ’ ’"—Italian Bronze . 275 


Chiseller’'s Work Ce Se ea 
Oiristoiie, Charlés .25 ..° ..) .. 291 


Clasp and age of a Purse 285 
Clichés = + 294 
Coins .. .. 264 
Creuzot . 280 


D’ Angers, Pee es... 871 
D’Aumont, Duc... Parra 
Decline of Locksmith’ 3 ‘Art . 288 


. 275 


Rape of Helen, Enamel of . 235 
Raymond Pierre : .. 232 
Theophilus.. .. .. 225 
True destination of Enamel . 247 
Destailleurs, M. H. .. “+ ee 289 
Different Methods of Casting es) oe ee 
Doge Marcus Antonius Memmo .. 267 
Du | Cerceau, Jacques Androuet . 286 
Diirer, AlherOi cos. . 285 
Electro Deposit of Copper <=, 290 
Electro-plating .. « 291, 296 
First use of Metal > o.oo 


Frame for an Hotel or Mansion Sign 286 


Galvano-plastic .. ae oe 
Gouthieres .. _ 277, 278, 279 
Greek Armour OP arene ey al 
Halles Centrales 5, 2oe 
His de la Salle .. pe | 
Homeric Heroes -- 256 
Huby, M peek 200 
Tron : . O74, 280, 282, 285 
Iron Gate of the Twelfth Century . . 283 
Italian Renaissance, Artists of any 
Jacobi, M. Fev abracd .. 293 
Jousse, Matthieu .. A . aS 
Keys of the Fifteenth Century .. . 284 
Key of the Sixteenth Century.. .. 287 


Keys.of Wrought Iron .. .. .. 291 
Lassus and the Viollet-le-Duc PP ORS 


390 INDEX. 


BRONZE AND IRON (Continued). 


PAGE PAGE 
Le Carpentier .. -» so +, 283 | Roman Armour... 
Lock of Wrought Tron .. .. ... 288 | Saint- Seine, M. de. is i hee eee 
Matsys, Quentin os ae ae oe 285 | Spencer, Mir ie 5 ee 
Medals a3 267 | Stone Implements .. .. 2. 4. 252 
Milanese Dagger of chiselled Iron .. 262 | Swords ree Ee 
Model of the Colleone .. .. «.. 273 | Troyon, M... — 252 
Oriental Arms .. ... «» «4 .. 204 | Vase for Sacred Purposes, of Chinese 
Qudry, Mss. 0 295 Bronzs i. See -. 268 
Process of casting Sapanese Bronze 270 | Zine .. Per 


Purse Olas o>.) epcl en eae ane 


JEWELLERY AND PLATE—pp. 301 To 363. 


Andrea del Verrochio «. «4. 028 | Jewish Ring oo. age 318 


Antonio del Pollajuolo ..  .. ., 323 | John of Pisa (593) 9). eee ee 


Antiquity of Gold... -. 301 | Klagman = sc. (0. ep. ae 
Ascanio ... res 338, 340,341 | Koul-Oba %. 20 0. ete eee ena 
Baccio Bandinelli .. .. . 345 | Léon de Laborde'* -7.5 92,55. eee 
Beer-pot, by Fanniere Brothers .. 363 | Leonardo da Vinci .. .. .. .. 323 
Benvenuto Cellini, Historyof.. .. 324 | Lorenzo Ghiberti .. 322 
»  Deathof .. .. 351 | Medals of Francis I. and Pope Cle- 
Bust of Michael Angelo <2 %,- 2 goee ment VII |. 3.5 eee . BOD 
Byzantine Work .. .. 310 | Merovingian Har-ring .. .. .. 312 
Cabinet des Antiques et Médailles 307 | Michael ‘Angelo... os .» 323 
Campana Collection... .. .. 307 | Nef of the time of Louis XV... .. 360 
Qestellint “Sts ie oe eee ; 806, 308 | Nicolas of Pisa .. 322 
Chardin... . 302 | Ornaments of the Sixteenth Century 322 
Coat of Arms of the Cellini Family 325 | Papal Coins .. . 834 
Delaulne, Etienne. 352, 3583 | Perseus: Statuette i in Bronze . ~. 344 
‘ Workshop of .. 353 | Phoenician an Pred, erga! e 
DE tampes, Duchess ae Se 343 | Porte Dorée 4° 30) 
Diamond Pendant, after Gilles Lévaré 354 | Raibolini,Francesco.. .. .. .. 823 
Drageoir, Le : Seis V4 f) Rhenish School . oy a centers Pra eas 311 
Ear Pendants : Byzantine ‘Work .. 311 | Ring;“Venetian.: 7). 0s. eee 
Egyptian Bracelet .. .. .. 222,304 | Ring of chiselled Tron “*.. 7 ee 
Electro-plating .. .. « 861, 368 Seal of different coloured Gold. eye 7 
Ewer of Pewter—the Work of Fran- Sculpture, French .. is woe 
gois Briot «‘..°°.. .. .. +». 821 | Silver Candlestick by Reettiers .. 359 
Fannitre Brothers’:.. .. .. .. 363 | Suger .- : RA dy 
Feucheres .... clacton ae Time by Gaudron oe papa 31 
Ghirlandajo, Domenico Si Tee eee ” of Marie Antoinette A) weed. 
Gold Ring of the Thirteenth Century 318 | Vase in massive Silver — . 355 
Itinerant Jewellers of India .. .. 803 | Vase, Antique, in the Treasury d of the 
Jewellery, Antique... .. .. «. 307 Abbey of St, Denis... 315 
Jewel Rooms °°... °°. os. em ee OLB] VOOhia hi ay es aon ah gag 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS—pp. 367 to Ep. i 
Adoration of the Virgin (Van Eyck) fi 2, Carpets—Aubusson..... .. .. 378 


Apocalypse, Tapestry of the .. .. 370 a Caramania., .....«1) a SOS 


Bentivoglio, Guido 1. 2. 442%. BTA es Persian... ....... <~ eee " 
Bor ehvse, Sarginal oc :.\<? sare s Savonnerie.. .. .. 378, 382 + 
Boucher... ib” Seen eae & Smyrna. 4 + ae 368, 383 


Brinvilliers, Marquis <P ee . 4. 876 | Carriera, Rosalba >> ee 4 


ee ee Ee ee 


INDEX. 391 


TAPESTRY AND CARPETS (Continued). 


PAGE 


Oartoons of Raphael... .. .. .. 372 
Chabal-Dussurgey .. .. .. .. 879 
Colbert : 376, 377 
Condamnacion de Souper et de Ban- 
quet.. Mes ew LO 
Cosway, Richard .. .. ne re met: 
Cozette .. . 878 
David and Bathsheba, History. of .. 371 


Desportes .. ae Paar at | 
Diana, Fables of ee 1 
Embroideries, Venetian ... ..  .. 385 
Four Quarters of the Globe .. .. 377 
Fruits dela Guerre .. .. 2 Res 


Fontainebleau, Factory at .. 376 
Gobelins Manufactory, History of the 

376, 383 
Holy Family (Raphael) .. .. .. 378 
Hopital de la Trinité pea eked 
Judgment of Paris 8 (Raphael) .. er od 1 
Le Brun .. So rr 


PAGE 


Samere LOOM. 6. 5. ele eh ae LOO 


Loom, High Warp . 369, 380 
fe Low Warp 4 368, 382 
Massacre of the Mamelukes (Horace 
Wernet)..22.« ONS Cahn LT 
Neuilly Manufactory ppg sey eee 
Ricamatori . .. A ar barite 45 
Romano, (MUO siiscten an ted Cann he 
Samson, History Bie eee. Te 
Scipio, History of .. 373 


Shepherds and Shepherdesses (Gobe- 
lins Tapestry after Boucher’s design) 379 
Tapestries, Flemish .. .. .. .. 374 


i Gobelin .. 380, 383 
Valenciennes... .. <. 370 

Tapestry, TLL Gitte eee ra aie eee cao 
Pi BRYCUE Sc ist wren iy Lote 

a Birthplace of ee 6 56T 
Decline of.. .. 375 


fe Introduction of, into France 369 


3 3125 00093 1671 


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